Since October 7, the United States and Israel have never seemed closer – and closer to a damaging rupture. This best-of-times/worst-of-times dynamic needs dissecting.

The Good News: Never before has America supported Israel so powerfully, generously, effectively: immediately after Hamas’s invasion; during the extraordinary, internationally-coordinated, defensive shield that repelled Iran’s mid-April rocket barrage; in the summer when both Iran and Hezbollah threatened massive strikes; and in resupplying munitions and spare parts – despite America’s military supply chain problems.

The Bad News: The war has exposed fault-lines in the U.S.-Israel alliance and in the Democratic establishment, not just “the Squad.” America’s increasingly toxic partisan landscape and the media’s moral panic over Gaza’s suffering civilians threatens to make Israel yet another partisan flashpoint. Pro-Israel Republicans fear Kamala Harris represents a new generation of Democrats who don’t love Israel in their “kishkes,” their guts; pro-Israel Democrats fear that too many isolationists and Jew-haters in Donald Trump’s coalition represent the true face of the MAGA-dominated Republican Party.

But the oft buried lede… the Enduring! It is remarkable how many Americans, let alone American Jews, continue speaking about Israel and Israelis as “we” not “them,” an essential part of the world democratic alliance and America’s close ally. Both political conventions in the summer of 2024 featured powerful, emotional, chance of “BRING THEM HOME, BRING THEM HOME,” positioning the hostage issue as a rare non-political, non-partisan issue uniting most Americans.

Trying to draw long-term lessons from this ongoing, multi-dimensional story, feels foolhardy, like declaring an operation successful because the anesthesia worked. Still, refusing to learn from this past year is dangerous.

The State of Israel and the Jewish people must figure out how to reinforce the longstanding U.S.-Israel alliance, building on the encouraging trends that are often overlooked. Simultaneously, neither Israel’s leadership nor the Jewish community should minimize the warning signs on the far-left, on the neo-isolationist right, and, increasingly, in much of America’s foreign policy establishment. America, Israel’s main supporter and the world’s democratic superpower, faces serious internal divisions and external threats – in the Middle East, and beyond.

The Good: the President, the Congress, and the Military

Decades from now, when assessing Joe Biden’s presidency, historians will emphasize his October 2023 response as one of his greatest leadership moments. Biden spoke clearly, powerfully, eloquently – and acted effectively. His presidential “don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t” paired with his trip to a war-torn and stricken Israel, probably averted a Hezbollah invasion and Iranian barrage that fall. Similarly, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s deploying of serious military hardware in the Middle East during the summer helped deter Iran and Hezbollah – as of this writing.

Moreover, the president generated a rare moment of bipartisan unity in a fractious America. Congress rallied by denouncing Hamas’s massacre, supporting Israel nearly unanimously, and approving massive arms shipments. Americans wholeheartedly supported Israel, especially initially.

Whatever tensions eventually emerged, the joint missile shield of April 13-14 vindicated decades of American and Israeli cooperation. The diplomatic achievements – building off the Abraham Accords, mobilizing the Jordanian, Saudi and European defense systems – reinforced the military achievements. That night offered a mirror image to the operational and intelligence failures of October 7 – which also embarrassed America’s spy agencies. The reliance on high-tech early warning systems, the shared intelligence, the defensive shields without any boots on the ground, saved Israel from a catastrophe that could have dwarfed the Hamas massacre’s casualties.

The benefits Israel reaped from this support were obvious. But America’s flow of arms – with more than 100 shipments by March 2024 alone – diplomatic support, and techno-military prowess helped the U.S. too.

First, geopolitically, the world has become increasingly dangerous since 2021. The chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal that summer undermined America’s global standing. Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, China’s continuous saber-rattling, and Iran’s march toward nuclear weaponry made America look weak and its world order seem wobbly. The post-October 7 mobilization, and the April 13-14 sound-and-light show, showed Biden and America as strong, clear, and formidable.

Second, analyses by Major (ret.) John Spencer, Edward Luttwak, and others make it clear: once again, Israel’s tragedies have become American military opportunities – and teachable moments. Just as America’s military in Iraq and Afghanistan applied lessons learned from Israel’s fight against Palestinian terrorism in the early 2000s, future American lives will be saved by some of the urban warfare techniques and battlefield medical procedures Israel is improvising in Gaza. Israel’s successes and failures offer many lessons for America, which will inevitably face future clashes with terrorists in overcrowded war zones.

Finally, especially at the beginning, the support for Israel offered by the president, the Congress, and the entire American government gave the American people a rare existential gift. Rallying around its ally, after the unspeakable perversions Hamas and other Gazan rampagers unleashed, reaffirmed America’s standing as the leader of the West – and the world’s moral beacon. Sadly, such affirmations of America have been lacking in recent years.

Moreover, as mentioned, the bipartisan support reinforces that old saw about the U.S.-Israel relationship, that’s losing resonance in this polarized period. America’s bipartisan support for Israel is not just a gift from the American people to Israel – it’s a gift from Israel to the American people; healthy democracies need some issues on which left and right agree. Impressively, at critical junctures, Republicans and Democrats in Congress cooperated – achieving increasingly rare votes of 412 to 1 in November 2023, affirming Israel’s right to exist, and of 366 to 5 in April, passing 2024’s $26.38 billion Israel Security Supplement Appropriations Act.

The Bad: America’s Conceptzia Still Dominates, Israel’s War Alienates, as Jew Hatred Escalates

The headlines highlight the surge of American Jew-hatred. As appalling as this bigotry is, it is limited to a rabid minority commanding too much attention. Far more concerning are these antisemites’ cheerleaders among “woke” progressives on the left and the neo-isolationists on the right, the mass-media pile-on against Israel, the newfound disdain for Israel among many young Americans, and the growing frustration with Israel – and, we must be honest, this government – in America’s foreign policy establishment, including significant voices within the Biden administration, and Vice President Harris’s foreign policy team.

It’s bad enough for bigots to metastasize on the margins of American political discourse. But recently, especially since October 7, there are leading voices in Congress, in academia, and in the media, who are so hostile to Israel that they prove how easily the lines beetween anti-Zionism and antisemitism blur.

These haters, from Tucker Carlson on the right to Ilhan Omar on the left, have found new legitimacy and broader audiences due to the mass-media orchestrated moral panic over Gaza. The New York Times alone ran over 4000 articles about the Gaza conflict in its first six months – mostly critical of Israel – while publishing only 80 articles in nine months of American-led fighting against terrorists in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, which killed ten thousand innocents. Americans are being bombarded with heartrending images of “innocent” Gazans suffering – and even President Biden has suggested that Israel is lashing out to work through its post-October 7 “trauma.”

Most concerning for Israel is the growing chorus of criticism within the Biden-Harris administration – and how the American foreign policy’ establishment’s own “conceptzia” – conception – blinded it before October 7 – and continues blinding it today.

Western journalists and policymakers enjoy blaming October 7 on their favorite lightening rod – Prime Minister Netanyahu. Typically, the Washington Post and other media outlets keep claiming that letting Hamas rule in Gaza “served the purposes of Netanyahu and opponents of a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict by hobbling the Palestinians’ ability to oppose Israel’s occupation.” This spin overlooks how much President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, America’s foreign policy establishment, and the international community, so believed in Hamas’s pragmatism, they pressured Netanyahu and Israel to act based on that delusion too.

America’s greatest foreign policy experts kept insisting that, as Richard Haass, the president of the Council of Foreign Relations, first advised in 2006, “U.S. officials ought to sit down with Hamas officials, much as they have with the leaders of Sinn Fein.” Predictably, 17 years later, urging Israel not to invade after October 7, Haass exaggerated the gap between “Hamas and the people of Gaza,” underestimating the many Palestinians who applauded Hamas’s bloodbath. And, naturally, he added: “To suggest that Hamas poses an existential threat to Israel is overblown.” Similarly in Foreign Affairs, the late Martin Indyk justifiably criticized the “total system failure on Israel’s part” and its “hubris,” on October 7, without criticizing American and Western shortcomings – let alone his own role in cultivating faith in what he called in 2011 “Hamas’ path toward greater pragmatism and flexibility and willingness to do a deal with Israel.” These governmental failures and academic oversights should challenge Americans and their leaders to re-examine America’s “conceptzias” too.

Most disturbing has been the speed with which American foreign policy makers started pressing Israel to “show restraint,” to take “wins” that were barely defenses, not victories, resurrect talk of the two-state solution, and trust the Palestinian Authority as a reliable alternative to Hamas – as if the Second Intifada, decades of delegitimization, pay-for-slay terrorism, and October 7, never happened. The Wall Street Journal elegantly captured the Biden-Harris administration’s often-clumsy balancing act by writing, “While it continues to provide Israel with much-needed support including armaments, the U.S. has closely monitored its conduct in the war, especially since the start of an operation in Rafah in early May.”

Many of these assumptions exacerbated tensions between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government, beyond the war’s conduct, including questions of humanitarian aid, visions for “the day after,” and how to handle the still-unresolved hostage crisis, which includes at least eight Americans.

Gaza’s many heartbreaking civilian deaths – what Americans branded “collateral damage” – raise important challenges for the U.S. The coverage and mainstream conversation about Gaza suggests that America is raising a generation unwilling to acknowledge the complexity involved in fighting terrorists hiding behind civilian population and infrastructure, nor does it have an appetite for friendly fire and other tragedies caused by “the fog of war.” It’s significant that few journalists and leaders have experienced war: in the 1970s, veterans made up 80% of the Congress, today it’s barely 20%.

The Israel-Hamas War coverage should alarm America’s military establishment. The United States faces many enemies in many different forms. A willingness to fight – and pay the price for defending democracy – is often necessary to help preempt war by projecting a stronger, prouder, more defiant posture.

Finally, the gap between Israel’s justified fear of Iran and the administration’s unwillingness to confront Iran, keeps growing. The Biden-Harris administration missed an opportunity after April 14 to hit Iranian military and industrial infrastructure – to demonstrate to China, Russia, and other enemies that attacks on allies, be it Israel or Taiwan, will trigger American counterattacks not just defenses. Such passivity also misreads Iran’s pattern of repeatedly pulling back when it – rather than its proxies and pawns – is threatened.

The Enduring: God Bless America – and the American People

Despite the tensions, the U.S.-Israel bond has remained surprisingly strong. A May 2024 Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll suggests that those Democrats urging Kamala Harris to distance herself from Israel are misreading Michigan, and the broader electorate. Perhaps her advisers should focus less on “Dearborn,” and more on Bessemer, Paw Paw, and other towns in Michigan’s 12 “pivot counties,” most of which voted for Obama twice, then for Trump twice.

For decades, Gallup polls keep showing Americans supporting Israel, defying the tensions and media narratives. Similarly, in May, 73% said they were following the war closely, with 79% supporting Israel, while 69% said Israel is “trying to avoid civilian casualties.” Two in three supported Israel in demanding a ceasefire only with the release of all hostages and Hamas removed from power, 74% approved of a Rafah operation, 56% chided Biden because not sending weapons emboldens Hamas and hurts hostage negotiations. Moreover, 78% blamed Iran for the conflict, with 84% fearing Iran as a major danger and 66% desiring aggressive sanctions and isolation tactics to intimidate the regime. Meanwhile, 69% saw a great deal of antisemitism on campus, 84% wanted university administrators cracking down on rule-breakers, and two-thirds agreed that higher education is pushing an agenda, with various worries about too many professors being too left-wing, anti-American, and/or racially divisive.

Given those numbers – and the Biden-Harris administration’s straddle – only 36% approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, down from 44% in October.

These numbers – and the defeat of the antisemitic Democratic Representatives Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush in Democratic Party primaries – should encourage the Jewish community – with two major provisos. First, most American elections pivot around domestic concerns: even the Harvard-Harris poll only finds 8% of voters calling the Israel-Hamas war their “most important issue.” A June Statista poll finds only 1% of voters identifying “foreign policy” as determinative. Similarly, young voters, like their elders, also cared far more about immigration, economic growth, and income inequality issues. Analysts must assess how ardently voters feel about an issue – recognizing a“passion gap” between supporting Israel or condemning antisemitism and Iran, versus acting on it. But it’s easier for effective leaders and compelling PR campaigns to close “passion gaps” than to change minds.

Moreover, the growing hostility between Trump and Harris voters, even within the Jewish community, suggests that the 2024 campaign will be perilous for America, Israel, and the American Jewish community. If Trump wins and too many Democrats and the media decide that Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel cost her Michigan, or that Harris’s Jewish critics weakened her, there could be considerable long-term damage to Democratic support for Israel. Similarly, if Donald Trump and his voters fear that Israel and the Jewish community have not been sufficiently grateful for their support for Israel, the long-term damage to Republican support for Israel could be considerable – accompanied by a spike in right-wing antisemitism, which since October 7 has been upstaged by left-wing Pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist antisemitism.

Recommendations for the Jewish People

• While fighting Jew-hatred boldly, the Jewish community should note how pro-Israel and Jew-positive most Americans are. Jewish leaders should launch a pro-Israel campaign thanking Americans, across the political spectrum, for their ongoing support, emphasizing the “BRING THEM HOME” convention moments, still pitching Israel as a rare bipartisan issue in a country desperate for more points of light and fewer flashpoints.
• Similarly, we need a political campaign building on the broad American fear of Iran. Desire for a stronger defense posture against Iran, as the weakest link in the chain of evil threatening the word, must be elevated into another bipartisan issue. As with supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism, the fight against Iran must be framed as right against wrong, championing American decency, pride, and survival, not another left-right political divider.
• While foreign policy rarely affects U.S. elections, this 2024 election will pivot around assessments of Kamala Harris’s image and strength. Donald Trump keeps insisting that she is weak and inexperienced, and that October 7 attacks along with other foreign policy disasters would not have happened on his watch. Insiders should pitch a clearer embrace of Israel without ambivalence, as an easy, popular, way for Harris to appear “presidential,” defying the unpopular extremists in her own party, especially if a clear victory over Hamas’s military – with some symbol of victory – becomes within reach after Rafah.
• The fall’s anticipated campus encampments will probably help the Jewish community define the pro-Palestinian movement as anti-American and a true threat to Harris’s election. The Democrats’ success in containing the anti-Israel protests in Chicago should inspire university presidents too. The community should be asking non-Jews, “which side are you on,” as pro-Palestinian hooligans burn American flags, deface American icons, violate fundamental American values, and threaten America’s future.
• The enduring American support for Israel and disdain for Jew-hatred should embolden the American Jewish community – and the Jewish organizations – to stop talking to itself and do more outreach to the silenced majority. The pro-Israel rally held in November 2023 should have had 580,000 attendees – each of the 290,000 or so Jewish demonstrators should have brought a non-Jewish “date” – from both sides of the aisle.
• Still, the Jewish community must be doubly wary throughout the remainder of the 2024 campaign – and its aftermath. Both Republicans and Democrats could end up angry at “the Jews” and Israel, and the Jewish community risks becoming badly divided. The inability of most on either side to hear the concerns of the other is palpable. Pro-Harris Jews are so convinced Trump will break America and ultimately betray Israel – given how quickly he denounced Netanyahu after October 7 – that they cannot fathom how any reasonable American could vote for “that convicted felon” and “January 6 insurrectionist.” Similarly, pro-Trump Jews are so frustrated by the global instability they blame on the Harris-Biden leadership project, and Harris’s constant need to balance affirmations for Israel with affirmations for the Palestinians, they cannot fathom how any Israel supporter or anyone understanding the need for strong presidential leadership could vote for her. That both candidates have consistently had less than 50% approval ratings should prompt respectful conversations about how to cope with your own candidate’s shortcomings. Instead, the current environment urges partisans to double-down rhetorically.

Recommendations for the Israeli Government

• It is essential therefore that Israel continually thank Republicans and Democrats for their support, celebrating bipartisanship, and avoid making Israel a political football. Some partisans keep trying to make Israel a wedge issue, Israel particularly risks being perceived as Republican “property.” The government must exert great discipline to avoid intensifying that trend.
• At the same time, Israel should frame this alliance as embodying shared interests and values, pitching opposition to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis (Iran’s proxies) and Iran itself as good opposing evil in an existential fight for America, not just Israel. Speaking to the American people is legitimate – bypassing any administration or disrespecting either party is not.
• Finally, Americans want to see Israel thinking about tomorrow and not stuck in October 2023. Israel must be as creative politically and diplomatically at this moment, as it has been militarily and entrepreneurially. For example, replacing the tired phrase “two states for two peoples” by calling for “two democracies for two peoples,” changes the dynamic, pressuring the Palestinians and the international community, while situating Israel as driving the peace train, not being bullied onto it.