The postmortem seems to have raised more questions than it answered—and the role of pro-Israel policy may only be one of them.

Yet when the autopsy finally arrived, the much-anticipated words (or even topics) “Gaza,” “Israel” or “Jews” did not appear even once in the 192 pages of what “Pod Save America” host Jon Favreau called “gobbledygook.” Finally, it seemed to some that transparency would distinguish legitimate policy debate from claims that unfairly assigned collective responsibility to Jewish or pro-Israel Democrats.

However, rather than accept the data and analysis of the report, progressives pivoted again—suggesting that the glaring exclusion of Gaza was suspect and that their suspicions about its role in 2024 remain.

What can be made of these sins of (possible) omission, and where does this leave some Jewish Democrats who still feel singled out for blame at the ballot box?

At very least, it was clear from the summer of 2024 that Gaza was emerging as a divisive issue in the campaign—and therefore could be considered as part of a multi-causal analysis in the autopsy. After all, by the time Harris became the Democratic nominee without competing in a primary, she had distanced herself from then-President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war but didn’t offer much in the way of her own alternative vision.

The matter came to a head at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when the “Uncommitted” movement, primarily composed of Arab and Muslim voters, and progressive and campus activists, was not offered a speaking timeslot (although the Goldberg-Polin family was). Controversy also swirled over the vice-presidential selection process, including as Pennsylvania’s Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro later confirmed in his best-selling memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories From a Life of Service, that he had been grilled by vetters asking whether he had ever worked as an agent of Israel.

While Harris highlighted her family connection to the Jewish community, she offered few specific commitments on issues many Jewish and Zionist voters prioritized, and spent considerable energy appealing to other constituencies.

After the election, progressive activists and Democratic-adjacent commentators leaned into the explanation that Gaza—or, more broadly, Israel and the pro-Israel community—was a decisive factor in the 2024 loss, and could endanger both the midterms and 2028. Several Democratic figures and candidates, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California, and presidential hopefuls California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, wondered aloud about allegations of genocide in Gaza, conditioning or cutting U.S. aid to Israel, and a reassessment of U.S. relations with Israel and the Palestinians.

In her 2025 memoir 107 Days, Harris criticized Biden’s “blank check to Netanyahu” and “inadequate and forced” concern for Gazans as contributing to her loss. The DNC seemed to have engaged with the role of Gaza when it leaked to Axios that it was working with the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, to investigate the issue, although IMEU later accused the DNC of burying their contribution. By spring, when Harris began gearing up for a renewed presidential push, she pointedly told donors that she wanted the autopsy released.

Is the report’s omission of Gaza suspect or simply not relevant? Certainly, it was a divisive issue, and a lack of data on voter attitudes and behavior in the report means that we can’t know how determinative it was at the ballot box either way. Further, the fact that DNC chair Ken Martin suddenly reversed course in hastily publishing the report, with the caveat that he felt under pressure to release it and didn’t “endorse” it, hasn’t helped allay concerns about what it does and does not contain.

Democratic analysts have also noted other striking omissions and incomplete sections, including discussions of Biden’s age and health status, and Harris’s rushed nomination. Was this a report that wasn’t quite ready for primetime, though it generally contained the major explanatory points? Or was it an unfinished document that didn’t follow through on its remit, by omission, commission or otherwise of topics that related to the 2024 defeat?

The postmortem seems to have raised more questions than it answered—and the role of pro-Israel policy may only be one of them.

But acknowledging the odd and opaque circumstances surrounding the report does not justify saying that “the Zionists,” Jewish donors, or pro-Israel Democrats cost Harris the election. The question is not whether Gaza and Israel matter to many Democrats. The answer is still that Gaza and Israel are unlikely to explain everything about the 2024 election.

The Democrats have many lessons to learn about their failures for the midterms and the 2028 general election. But the most important should be that a blame game can’t replace rigorous data and analysis-driven interrogation of the party’s successes and failures at the ballot box, especially at the cost of its loyal Jewish and Zionist constituencies. If it takes a second autopsy to get to the truth, including about Gaza, so be it.

Posted in JNS

The post The DNC autopsy doesn’t mention the Jewish state first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The latest scandal that emerged overnight marks a troubling escalation in the subterranean conflict unfolding within the American establishment against Israel.

The dramatic leak to NBC News, according to which the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) raised Israel’s espionage threat level to the highest “critical” category, is not a routine security incident. To understand its significance, historical context is essential.

Since the Jonathan Pollard affair in the 1980s, Israel has been careful to avoid spying on U.S. soil or monitoring senior American officials. For that reason, the current report raises numerous questions, particularly given that the leaked document reportedly contains no forensic evidence or concrete findings proving a breach, only alleged “concerns.” The absence of evidence raises an obvious question: Is this merely a coincidence, or could the document represent a kind of land mine or parting gift left behind by departing intelligence officials? To answer that question, one must look at the timing.

It is highly noteworthy that anonymous intelligence-community “sources” chose to leak the information precisely as Congress is considering Section 224 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2027.

A dramatic initiative

Section 224 is a dramatic and critical initiative intended to deepen, synchronize and accelerate U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation. The provision focuses on shared challenges at the forefront of military technology, including counter-drone systems, missile defense, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

It requires the Pentagon to appoint a senior official to coordinate that cooperation, ensuring that American and Israeli forces maintain a qualitative advantage on the battlefield. The isolationist wing in the United States has mounted a forceful campaign against the provision, spreading what the author views as myths that it would “merge” the two militaries, give Israel influence over Pentagon supply chains and, above all, grant Israel unrestricted access to sensitive U.S. military data.

Now, just as the provision faces a critical test, an intelligence document surfaces warning that Israel is aggressively spying on the United States. The institutional logic of the leakers is, in the author’s view, entirely clear: How can Congress approve legislation that expands information-sharing and technological cooperation with a country simultaneously designated a “critical espionage threat”? This amounts to a targeted effort to derail the legislation. To connect the dots behind this campaign, it is worth revisiting the controversy surrounding Joe Kent’s departure two months ago.

Kent, the Trump-appointed director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), resigned and launched an unprecedented attack on Israel. He argued that Iran does not pose an immediate threat and accused Israel and its supporters of dragging America into an unnecessary war. He also linked his wife’s death in Syria to a conflict that he claimed Israel helped create. Kent is not operating in a vacuum. Does his worldview also reflect the outlook of former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard? Throughout her tenure, Gabbard displayed deep opposition to any military confrontation with Iran. Although she presented her resignation as a personal decision related to her spouse’s illness, there are indications behind the scenes suggesting that she was actually forced out because of those disagreements.

Tying the president’s hands?

The DIA is structurally subordinate to the Pentagon, but as director of national intelligence, Gabbard controlled the National Intelligence Program budget and defined intelligence priorities.

Could the bureaucratic infrastructure left behind by her and Kent now be producing documents lacking forensic support in an effort to derail Section 224, tie the president’s hands and deepen the rift between the two countries? But the broader picture extends far beyond a struggle within the intelligence community.

The isolationist and nationalist current within the Republican Party and Trump’s political orbit is waging a multifront campaign to distance the United States from Israel. Intelligence matters and legislation are only one vector in that effort.

Another major vector currently being employed is the Christian issue, which played a significant role during the campaign in Lebanon. To understand this from a geostrategic perspective, one must remember that Trump pledged to protect Christians wherever they live around the world. Supporters point to actions such as the use of military force against Boko Haram in Africa, which Trump described as part of protecting Christians globally.

Against that backdrop, the unusual invitation extended to the Greek patriarch to visit the White House should be viewed in a different light.

The patriarch is not a head of state who would ordinarily be expected to meet with the president of the United States. Rather, the author argues, it was a calculated move by the same nationalist faction seeking to advance an anti-Israel narrative. The patriarch focused specifically on Lebanon and the Holy Land when he said that ancient communities seek to preserve their faith and freedom of worship, and that ensuring access to the Holy Land is a prerequisite for regional stability. Those pressures, according to the author, were reflected in a heated exchange between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump regarding the continuation of military operations in Lebanon.

It must also be acknowledged, the author argues, that the campaign there was ultimately affected by irresponsible actions by some Israeli soldiers who desecrated Christian symbols, including a cross associated with Jesus and a statue of Mary. Such conduct, together with the troubling phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting at tourists and clergy members in Jerusalem, provided officials in Washington with precisely the ammunition they were seeking to constrain Israel’s actions.

Add to that inflammatory comments from politicians discussing the takeover of southern Lebanon, including Christian villages, and a perfect campaign emerges portraying Israel as carrying out ethnic cleansing.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has been making important efforts to counter what the author describes as this distortion on social media. In that context, the recent decision by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to appoint a special envoy at the ambassadorial level to engage with the Christian world deserves mention. The appointment of Ambassador George Deek to the position is a strategic step intended to bring order to the issue, moderate tensions and centralize engagement with these communities, with particular emphasis on Christian Zionists.

When all of these developments are viewed together — the allegedly evidence-free DIA leak coinciding with the advancement of Section 224 in Congress and the pressure campaign surrounding Christian communities in Lebanon and Jerusalem — they form a coherent picture. This is a coordinated effort by the isolationist camp to apply pressure on the president and drive a deep wedge into U.S.-Israel relations.

Published on Ynet

The post The espionage affair: Who is driving a wedge between the US and Israel? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The post The EU bashes Israel publicly, but buys from it privately first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The war with Iran that began on February 28 will be remembered as the moment the US-Israel alliance reached its highest point – and its most politically dangerous one.

On the battlefield, what we witnessed was unprecedented. For the first time in history, the American and Israeli militaries fought as a single, unified force. American and Israeli F-15s and F-35s flew side by side in simultaneous strike packages. They shared intelligence, relied on the same refueling tankers, and divided up targets inside joint command centers, where Israeli officers adopted English as the primary language of the war.

This was not the old model of the alliance, where one side supplied weapons and political backing while the other did the fighting. This was something entirely different.

From the first days of the war, the division of labor between CENTCOM and the IDF was clear. The US focused on protecting its regional bases from ballistic missiles and drones, while also targeting the Iranian navy and working to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Israel, meanwhile, concentrated on the regime itself – its institutions, its command structure, its senior leadership, and the missile stockpiles that threatened the Israeli home front.

The moment that perhaps best symbolized this partnership was the strike that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei. According to the account that has since emerged, the CIA obtained precise intelligence from a human source about Khamenei’s location. That intelligence was passed to Israel.

Israel then launched a massive air operation into Tehran, sending roughly 100 aircraft to strike the compound and eliminate not only Khamenei but also other senior officials around him. Whatever one thinks of the war, it represented a historic moment in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. It involved not only intelligence sharing or diplomatic backing. It was a level of trust and battlefield cooperation unlike anything the two countries had ever demonstrated. In some respects, Israel functioned in the role that Britain filled during World War II.

But while American and Israeli pilots were flying together over Iran, the public foundation of that alliance inside the US was eroding.

America’s public support is slipping

A pew survey published on April 7 found that 60% of American adults now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% just a year earlier. Only 37% said they viewed Israel favorably. That is a stunning figure, considering that for decades Israel has been one of America’s closest allies and one of the largest recipients of US military assistance. Even more troubling is the trajectory. Since 2022, favorable views of Israel have fallen by roughly 20 points.

The generational breakdown paints an even bleaker picture. Pew found that roughly 70% of respondents under the age of 50 expressed unfavorable views of Israel. Among Democrats, the numbers were even more alarming, with about 80% holding unfavorable opinions. Republicans remain more supportive, but even there, the numbers are not what they once were. Fifty-eight percent reported favorable views, while 41% said they viewed Israel unfavorably.

A Gallup poll showed a similar trend right before the war broke out in late February, when for the first time in 25 years of polling, more Americans said they sympathized with the Palestinians than with the Israelis. The margin was not significant, but the trend was impossible to ignore. Support for Israel had dropped sharply in just a year, and the country’s favorability was hovering near a historic low. Think about the contrast for a moment. On the one hand, the US and Israel carried out what may have been the most sophisticated and ambitious joint military operation in the history of their alliance. On the other hand, the very public on which that alliance rests is drifting away.

That is not something Israel can ignore. Alliances are not sustained just by generals, intelligence sharing, and political friendships. In democracies, they endure because the public supports them and because voters believe they have value. Once that support cracks – especially among young people – the strategic consequences may take time to appear, but they ultimately do. For decades, Israel’s strength in the US rested not just on shared values and common enemies, but on bipartisanship. Republicans and Democrats disagreed about many things, but Israel largely remained above the fray.

This allowed Israel to assume that whoever was in office and whatever political reality reigned in Washington, the underlying foundation of support remained bipartisan and broad enough to withstand it. Now, with the consensus frayed on both sides of the aisle, that assumption no longer holds. What makes the current moment even more concerning is that Israel’s critics are no longer confined to one political camp. The hostility is on both extremes.

On the Left, progressive lawmakers like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have for years framed Israel as a colonial aggressor and human rights violator. Their rhetoric, once seen as marginal, has steadily moved into the mainstream of progressive discourse. What used to be the language of the activist fringe is now heard in congressional offices, on university campuses, in major NGOs, and in large parts of the Democratic coalition. But what is newer – and in some ways more dangerous – is the shift in sectors of the Right. Listen to some of the arguments coming from far-right media personalities like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and, at times, even Megyn Kelly, and the overlap is impossible to miss. The language may differ in tone, but the substance is the same: Israel is manipulative, drags America into war, and has interests that are not aligned with America.

This is why anyone who cares about the future of the US-Israel relationship has to ask three questions. First, how did we get to the point where the relationship has become so polarizing? Second, can that erosion be reversed? And third, if it cannot, what does that mean for Israeli security, which remains deeply dependent on American support, assistance, and diplomatic backing? One of the difficulties in discussing this issue is that people tend to blame whichever political side they already oppose. For many Israeli centrists, liberal American Jews, and Democratic voters in the US, the culprit is obvious: Benjamin Netanyahu. He is the Israeli prime minister who, in their view, turned Israel to the far-Right, aligned with Kahanists and the ultra-Orthodox, and moved Israel away from the shared values.

In addition, these people accuse Netanyahu of politicizing the relationship with Washington, identifying Israel too closely with Trump and the Republican Party, and turning one of the country’s most vital strategic assets into a domestic political tool. While this is an exaggeration, there is always a foundation of truth. One recent example came in late January, when Netanyahu declared that Israeli soldiers had “lost their lives” in Gaza because of an “arms embargo” imposed by the Biden administration.

That framing was political and designed to serve Netanyahu at home, and shift the blame from his decisions and policies to president Joe Biden. It turned a strategic disagreement between allies into a domestic talking point. By doing so, it treated Israel’s most important alliance not as a national asset to be protected, but as a political football to be kicked around for short-term gain.

It was not the first time Netanyahu had done this.

One of the clearest examples was in 2015, when he traveled to Washington to speak before Congress against the nuclear deal – the JCPOA – that president Barack Obama was promoting. Netanyahu believed the deal was dangerous, and while he was right on the substance, the manner in which he chose to fight it – by publicly aligning with Republican leadership against a sitting Democratic president – was seen by many Americans as blatant interference in US domestic politics.

Three years earlier, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Netanyahu hosted Republican candidate Mitt Romney in Jerusalem for a high-profile visit that was widely interpreted as an implicit endorsement. And during Netanyahu’s first term as premier, in the late 1990s, his relationship with Bill Clinton was also tense and politically charged.

From the perspective of many Democrats – and especially American Jews, whom mostly vote Democratic – Netanyahu long ago became a partisan figure on the opposite side of America’s own political divide. There is a counter-narrative, one that resonates deeply with many Israelis, especially on the Right, and cannot be dismissed. According to that view, Netanyahu did not politicize the relationship out of recklessness, but because he believed that defending Israel required standing up even to friendly American presidents when their policies endangered the Jewish state.

It is an argument that draws on Golda Meir’s famous line: If the choice is between being dead and pitied or alive with a bad image, we would rather be alive and have the bad image. There is truth in this argument since, after all, Israel’s leaders are not elected to win editorial-page approval in The New York Times. They are elected to keep the country alive. If an American administration is pursuing a policy that Israeli leaders believe will endanger the country, they have an obligation to speak out.

The problem is that this entire conversation is too simplistic. Hinging the relationship on one person such as Netanyahu ignores the demographic and ideological changes reshaping both countries, as well as the complicated history of the US-Israel relationship itself. While US president Harry Truman’s immediate recognition of Israel in 1948 was historic, the following two decades were characterized by strategic distance. Washington did not want to alienate the Arab world and refused to sell weapons to Israel during the War of Independence and also during the 1956 Sinai campaign. The US viewed the new state with sympathy, but not as a strategic partner.

The change started in 1962, when president John F. Kennedy approved the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel. Even then, the sale was justified on the grounds that these were defensive weapons. The deeper shift only came after the 1967 Six Day War, when Lyndon Johnson began to see Israel as a valuable regional asset and the US gradually emerged as its chief arms supplier. Then came the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when president Richard Nixon authorized Operation Nickel Grass, the airlift that resupplied Israel with weapons and equipment at a moment of existential danger. It was a pivotal shift in policy that demonstrated Israel’s reliance on the US.

From Cold War distance to strategic alliance

But even that high point was followed by strain. In 1975, president Gerald Ford imposed what became known as a “reassessment,” a diplomatic move designed to pressure Israel into territorial concessions. The 1980s were similarly mixed. President Ronald Reagan elevated strategic cooperation and deepened the military relationship, but tensions flared after Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, and again following the invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The early 1990s brought renewed optimism with the Oslo process, but that too gave way to friction when Netanyahu took office in 1996 and clashed repeatedly with president Clinton. Then came the Obama years, marked by some of the lowest personal chemistry ever seen between an American president and an Israeli prime minister. Yet, from Obama the relationship moved to Trump, and from one of its most strained phases to one of its warmest. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US embassy there, recognized Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords.

Most Israelis concluded from this that while the relationship was affected by personalities, it was still stronger than any one person. It was rooted in shared interests and values, as well as genuine friendship. The relationship, people believed, was dynamic, but it did not break.

That was true – until recently.

What is happening in America is not just about extremists on campus, social-media influencers, or antisemitism. It is about how regular Americans view Israel, the values Israel appears to project, and the story it is telling the world today. It is about whether large parts of the American public still see the Jewish state as one that they share not only interests with, but also democratic norms.

The war that erupted after the Hamas-led terrorist massacre on October 7, 2023, landed on top of an existing American debate about Israel’s direction – one shaped by the judicial overhaul crisis throughout 2023 and by a broader perception, especially among Democrats and many American Jews, that Israel’s democratic character was changing. Israel itself has shifted to the Right – not only in domestic politics, but also regarding how it approaches security, territory, religion, identity, and the use of force. The rise in Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, and the government’s failure to allocate the resources needed to stop it, are part of this picture.

This “values” dimension is often dismissed in Israel as naive. It should not be. In American politics, values are not just fluff. They are how large parts of the Democratic Party decide which foreign actors are “like us” and which are not.

A rights-based framework now dominates parts of the Left, and Israel is increasingly viewed through that lens regardless of the enemy or how it fights. That is how accusations of genocide and war crimes gain traction, no matter how the IDF conducts itself. On parts of the Right, the problem is different but no less serious. There, an “America First” worldview questions why US resources should fund overseas commitments at all, including to allies such as Israel.

Age makes a huge difference. Older Americans grew up viewing Israel as a vulnerable, threatened country surrounded by enemies, often through the prism of Holocaust. Millennials and younger Americans view Israel differently. To them, Israel is a regional superpower with a purported nuclear arsenal and one of the world’s strongest militaries and economies. They don’t believe they have a moral debt to Israel, and want the relationship to be looked at as a modern foreign policy choice.

For Israel, the repercussions are dramatic. Yes, the relationship is mutually beneficial. Israeli intelligence, technology, and regional capabilities provide enormous value to the US. Israeli operations help counter Iranian aggression, but this is still not a symmetrical relationship. It is obvious which side depends more heavily on the other.

Which means Israeli politicians who speak carelessly about America, who use the alliance for domestic political gain, or who assume that support will always be there are playing with fire. The over-identification with Trump comes at a price, since the pendulum will swing back and a Democrat will one day return to office. When that happens, Israel will face a new reality. In addition, the belief that Israel dragged the US into the Iran war will carry a price, even if a Republican remains in office but adopts a more isolationist posture. The assumption that military success can compensate for political alienation is dangerous and false.

This does not mean Israel should stop fighting the wars that it needs to fight. It does not mean Israel should adopt policies purely to please American editorial boards or activist groups. But it does mean that Israel cannot behave as though there are no consequences to what it says, what it does, and how it is seen. When Israeli government ministers pop open bottles of Champagne to celebrate the passing of a death penalty in the Knesset, Americans notice. When there is no political horizon to resolve conflicts after two and a half years of war, Americans notice. When Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is tolerated, and domestic democratic norms are under attack, Americans notice.

And they draw conclusions.

That is why the lesson of this war is not only military. It is political. Because what once looked like a relationship protected by bipartisan consensus is today exposed to demographic change, ideological realignment, culture-war politics, and growing skepticism on both sides of the American spectrum.

From a security perspective, one of the most immediate challenges Israel faces is whether it will receive approval from the Trump administration to renew the 10-year aid package under which the IDF annually receives $3.8 billion in military aid. The current MOU – signed by the Obama administration in 2016 – will expire in September 2027. That may sound like a while away, but in strategic terms it is around the corner, and if Israel wants to secure a new agreement, discussions need to have begun already.

The next MOU matters for two reasons. First, because the aid is needed especially in a post-October 7 reality, when the threats against Israel are not abstract. Second, it has value as a symbol of an alliance which illustrates that no matter who is the president – Obama or Trump – the institutional relationship remains resilient.

Interestingly, in 2016, before Obama approved the MOU, there was a debate in the government whether to close the deal with Obama or wait for the next president. Netanyahu ultimately chose to sign with Obama for one simple reason: he knew what he was getting. Hillary Clinton was expected to be supportive, but Trump was an unknown quantity at the time, and his “America First” rhetoric worried Israeli defense officials. Fast forward to 2021. Under president Biden, some inside the Israeli government quietly explored the possibility of beginning talks on a future MOU even though years remained on the current one. The logic was that Biden was also a known supporter of Israel, and it would be better to lock in a deal while the opportunity existed. Then came October 7, and the MOU talks were pushed aside.

There is already a growing understanding in Israel’s defense establishment that the next package will be the hardest one to secure, and that Trump is the last American president who would even consider offering a major long-term aid package. According to this thinking, whoever succeeds him – Republican or Democrat – would balk at a deal.

This is why some Israeli officials have proposed a new model – one based less on dependence and more on partnership. The idea would be to use the next MOU not merely to procure weapons, but to deepen joint development, production, and operational integration.

The recent war with Iran only strengthens that logic. If the two militaries can fight side by side as partners, then perhaps the alliance can be framed less as America subsidizing Israel and more as the two countries investing together in technologies, capabilities, and systems that serve both. That is an important conversation. But it should not create illusions. Although Israel can build greater defense independence, there are limits.

The IDF’s reliance on the US is not just about artillery shells or one-ton bombs. Every aircraft flown by the Israel Air Force except one is American-made – F-15s, F-16s, F-35s, Apache helicopters, Black Hawks, CH-53 helicopters, C-130s, Gulfstreams, and Boeing refueling tankers. This means that if a US administration wants to stop an Israeli war, it does not need to withhold one-ton bombs, as Biden did. All it needs to do is slow down the flow of spare parts for combat aircraft. Without spare parts, planes will not be able to fly, and if planes cannot fly, Israel will not be able to fight.

Which is why the future of the US-Israel relationship cannot be reduced to slogans. Israel needs to invest in independence where it can, but it also needs to invest more in strengthening support in the US.

The same war that revealed the astonishing operational partnership has also exposed how vulnerable that alliance is in the years ahead. This is the real danger, and while Israel’s leaders do not control the polarization in American politics, they do control how they treat the alliance and whether it receives the seriousness it deserves. They can decide whether to preserve it as a national asset or exploit it as a partisan tool. Only they can decide whether to govern in a way that widens the gap with America or narrows it.

Israel has spent decades building a relationship with the US that no other country in the Middle East has ever had. It would be a historic act of negligence to assume that because it exists, it will simply endure on its own.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post The US-Israel alliance reached a military peak, but its political future is under threat first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Klitsner argues the campaign comes down to “security, security, security,” that Netanyahu “single-handedly made Ben-Gvir who he is,” and that the widening rift with Diaspora Jewry now boils down to one message from Israel’s American partners: “first, do no harm.”

A mainstream pro-Israel insider’s candid read on a country holding an election, fighting its longest war, and trying to hold its global family together at the same time.

The post Podcast: Is the Iran war destroying the ‘unbreakable’ US-Israel bind? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

By: Prof. Sharon Pardo, Shlomi Bereznik, Eli Kannai, and Dr. Hila Zehavi

Official European Union rhetoric toward Israel has become sharply more negative since Hamas’ October 7 invasion and the war in Gaza, according to a new study by the JPPI.

The study analyzed more than 24,000 press releases and official statements issued by EU institutions between 2017 and 2026, including publications from the European External Action Service, the bloc’s diplomatic arm. Researchers filtered and reviewed 3,584 relevant EU publications, including 895 that dealt directly with Israel. Using AI-based sentiment analysis, they classified the statements as positive, neutral or negative.

Across the full period examined, 38% of EU statements about Israel were classified as negative, 49% as neutral and 13% as positive. But the study found a sharp shift after October 7. Before the Hamas-led attack, 29% of EU statements about Israel were classified as negative. After October 7, that figure rose to nearly 46%, an increase of almost 60%.

Positive statements fell from nearly 20% before October 7 to 8% afterward, while neutral statements dropped from 51% to 46%. The study said that in the early stages of the war, EU statements included condemnations of Hamas, recognition of Israel’s right to self-defense and calls for the release of hostages. But as the war in Gaza continued, European rhetoric became increasingly critical of Israel over the humanitarian situation in the Strip, settlement activity and the situation in Judea and Samaria.

Some EU statements included warnings about mass hunger in Gaza, calls for a ceasefire and direct criticism of ministers in the Israeli government, according to the study. JPPI also found that more than half of EU statements about Israel — 50.1% — included language tied to the two-state solution, including references to two states or a Palestinian state. The institute said the finding shows that the issue remains a consistent and central theme in EU foreign policy, even as those terms are used far less frequently in Israeli political discourse.

The study compared Israel with other countries with strategic ties to the EU, including Iran, China, Turkey and Qatar. It found that Iran receives even more negative treatment than Israel in EU statements, with the tone toward Tehran worsening over the past decade.

But the researchers said criticism of Iran was linked mainly to direct security threats to Europe, particularly Iranian support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, while criticism of Israel focused largely on the Palestinian issue and humanitarian and legal concerns. Qatar, by contrast, received especially favorable treatment. More than two-thirds of EU publications dealing with Qatar were classified as positive, and researchers found almost no negative official statements toward Doha. Turkey was treated mostly neutrally, with about 75% of EU statements classified as neutral, 10% as negative and 15% as positive.

The JPPI noted that this was the case despite concerns over democratic backsliding, human rights violations and the persecution of opposition figures, journalists and academics under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The post Study: EU’s negative statements about Israel increased post-October 7 first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The map of threats against Israel is crowded, and we are straining every muscle to thwart them. They loom in the south, the north, and the east. But one serious threat – perhaps the gravest in the long term – is being neglected: the very legitimacy of Israel’s existence is under assault by voices in the free world.

Israel has managed to survive as a villa in the regional jungle partly because it is seen as an overseas extension of the West. The villa’s extensive system of ties with that world – on the cultural, economic, diplomatic, and, of course, security fronts – has served as Israel’s safety net. But that critical network is now dramatically fraying. The demonization of Israel has become fashionable across Europe and among expanding segments of American public opinion. The villa is more isolated than ever, which is why the prime minister likens it to Sparta.

Whatever the cause of this demonization – classic antisemitism on the right, progressive antisemitism on the left, the sting of the Qatari scorpion, Israeli government policies perceived as extremist, the spirals of venom on social media, and more – it must not be accepted as a decree of fate. There is a temptation to curl up into fatalism: “the whole world is against us,” or “Esau hates Jacob,” and hope for the best.

Another temptation is to focus on the half-full glass: the friends we still have, such as India, the evangelicals, and countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. But that would be an irresponsibility of the highest order. The consoling image of “a people that dwells alone” is a strategic danger to the future of the Zionist project.

It has been reported that Israel is rushing to acquire new fighter squadrons from the United States, fearing that after two pro-Zionist presidents – Biden and Trump – there may emerge an isolationist president, or even one hostile to us. The free world was saved during World War II when the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt triumphed over those of Charles Lindbergh, an extreme isolationist and antisemite who sympathized with Hitler and considered running for president before backing down.

We were spared the dystopia of a Lindbergh presidency that Philip Roth imagined in The Plot Against America. But who can guarantee that a future president will not be a Republican in the mold of Tucker Carlson, or a Democrat in the mold of Zohran Mamdani? Can we rely on Europe, where Islam is the rising force?

We must mobilize the national resources we have accumulated to change the narrative that attacks the legitimacy of Zionism, and to drain the swamp of consciousness from which these wild shoots grow. We cannot be content with help from Jews overseas – like AIPAC – or with another Israeli “hasbara” campaign. A paradigm shift is needed. That shift will come only when we internalize that the struggle for our existence is decided not only at our borders, but also in how the free world sees us. We invest more than 100 billion shekels a year in defending our borders, but spend only pennies, in national terms, on the battlefield of global consciousness. This neglect may have existential consequences.

The battle is far from lost. What is needed is Ben-Gurionist leadership that grasps the depth of the challenge and tackles it professionally and decisively. Professionalism means pooling knowledge and expertise, developing a “war doctrine” suited to the new reality, mapping the field, shaping a narrative, designing tools to disseminate it, building international partnerships, and more.

Decisiveness requires understanding that change is required across the board. Alongside physical national security, entrusted to bodies that operate at home (the IDF and Shin Bet) and abroad (the Mossad), Israel must entrust the cognitive sphere – the national security of consciousness – to a new dedicated entity: a nonpartisan state body like the other security agencies, with generous long-term funding befitting the challenge, and under the direct responsibility of the Prime Minister’s Office or the Ministry of Defense. This is not “just” about foreign relations or the protection of Diaspora Jews. It is, emphatically, at the core of national security.

The private sector, too, must be mobilized. Just as physical national security draws on Israel’s defense-tech industry, the national security of consciousness could draw on the cyber industry, artificial intelligence, and the broader technological world, with all its new developments, where Israel, as is well known, is a global engine. Because this is a matter of “influence,” careful attention must be paid to how the responsibilities should be divided, making use of the relative advantages of the state on one hand and the private sector on the other.

National security depends not only on victories in Bint Jbeil or Rafah, but also on the battlefields of consciousness in Washington, Berlin, and Paris.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post A War of Consciousness first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The European Union’s (EU) decision to impose sanctions on Israeli organizations and individuals carries serious implications for Israeli sovereignty, and it is bad news for the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and for the State of Israel. It also signals the possibility of further damage to Israel’s vital economic relations with the EU. This harsh step shows how Israel’s failure to enforce the law is spurring international actors – who seek to dictate what they regard as proper Israeli policy – to act against it. Israel must fight these decisions resolutely on the diplomatic front. At the same time, it must act against Jewish terrorism, a vile phenomenon that endangers the settlements and the state.

In its decision last week, the EU, for the first time, imposed sanctions on bodies in Israel. In doing so, it drew a false and contemptible equivalence between Hamas butchers and settlers in Judea and Samaria.

The implications for the sanctioned organizations and individuals are dramatic. They are expected to face restrictions on financial activity outside Israel, and limits will likely be imposed on them inside Israel as well. But the implications do not stop there; they affect the entire settlement enterprise and even the State of Israel.

Economic sanctions cast a wide net. They may formally target specific actors, but because the global financial system is so deeply interconnected, they require financial institutions in Europe and elsewhere throughout the world to scrutinize every financial transaction and transfer of funds originating in Judea and Samaria. This could brand all economic activity in the area as suspect in the eyes of foreign banks and have a “chilling effect” on Judea and Samaria across the financial and economic system. International banks – and even Israeli ones – fearful of violating sanctions, may impose restrictions beyond what the law requires, thereby limiting the ability of parts of Israeli society to operate within the global economy. This is a strategic threat that could eventually affect the entire Israeli economy, as it creates further uncertainty and business risk for Israel.

Moreover, imposing sanctions on institutions and organizations such as Amana and Regavim blackens the reputation of the settlement enterprise as a whole. It sends a threatening message to other companies and economic bodies active in Judea and Samaria: they, too, could find themselves on a sanctions list.

In practice, the sanctions also bypass Israel’s legal and administrative systems, thereby harming its sovereignty. When the European Union decides to restrict activity related to the settlements, it seeks to usurp Israel’s right to decide what happens on the ground. This is an attempt to impose a diplomatic agenda through economic pressure, while eroding Israel’s authority as the sole power responsible for its citizens and for the territory under its control.

This step deserves unequivocal condemnation, whatever justification the Europeans may offer. And yet, these sanctions are also the result of what is happening on the ground. Reports of Jewish rioters committing acts of terror against their Palestinian neighbors have become almost daily occurrences. Harrowing images from such incidents are circulated the world over, and Israel’s law-enforcement system appears barely functional. This is hardly surprising when the ministers responsible for administering the territory and enforcing the law are Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. The consequences of this failure are severe. Israel’s international image suffers as a result, and settlers of every stripe are tarred with the same brush.

Israel must act with determination in convincing the European Union to cancel these detrimental sanctions. At the same time, and regardless of the sanctions, the state must get serious about enforcing the law in Judea and Samaria. A reality in which Jewish rioters repeatedly attack Palestinians is disastrous. Finally, the Bank of Israel must find targeted solutions that allow those affected by the sanctions to continue functioning economically, without harming the Israeli financial system as a whole or its ability to operate globally.

Published in the Jewish Journal

The post Europe’s Sanctions Are a Strategic Blow to the Settlement Enterprise – and to Israel first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Is war returning to Gaza? That is the question being quietly debated inside Israel’s security establishment.

In the IDF Southern Command, for example, senior officers are adapting and redrafting operational plans for a renewed offensive, including conquering the part of Gaza not currently under Israeli control.

And the reason is simple: Hamas is back. Not in the sense that it can immediately launch another October 7-style attack against Israel – the IDF still maintains control over significant parts of the Strip, including the buffer zone and the “yellow line” established after the war – but it is rebuilding, reconstituting itself and rearming.

Talk to commanders who have spent time in Gaza in recent months, and they all describe the same picture: Hamas operatives are openly moving around, humanitarian routes are being used to try to smuggle in weapons, terror infrastructure is slowly being rebuilt, and the organization is once again tightening its grip over the civilian population. Its finances, depleted during the war, are also recovering. Fear – Hamas’s most powerful weapon against Gazans themselves – is back.

Hamas did not build the capabilities for the October 7 massacre in just a year or two. It took decades. First came rudimentary rockets. Then, the longer-range rockets. Then tunnels. Then, precision explosives. Then, the elite infiltration units. Israel watched much of it happen in real time and convinced itself it could contain the threat, an illusion that was shattered on October 7.

Now Israeli officials fear the same cycle may already be restarting because the dilemma facing Israel is not simple. The first option is to return to war – to launch another massive ground invasion, reconquer the remaining areas of Gaza, and attempt once again to dismantle Hamas completely.

The problem is that Israel already tried this. For two years, the IDF operated in Gaza with the objective – as delineated by the prime minister – to destroy Hamas.

Extraordinary military force was employed, thousands of terrorists were killed, and almost the entire leadership was decapitated. Yet Hamas survived. Why would trying the same thing again yield a different result?

The second option is to avoid another war and try to manage the situation – maintain the status quo, work alongside the “Board of Peace” led by US President Donald Trump, deepen regional cooperation, and hope that eventually enough diplomatic and economic pressure will force Hamas to disarm and relinquish control.

Maybe that works. Maybe it does not.

For now, we know that Hamas refuses to disarm and that, as long as this is the case, the Board of Peace will not advance other Gaza reconstruction initiatives. But that is fluid, and over time, the demands on Israel will almost definitely shift. Pressure will mount to scale back operations, then it will be to scale back the presence of forces, and then it will be to leave the Gaza Strip completely.

There is another problem as well – if Israel restarts the war, much of the world will not understand why. From the outside, the ceasefire and the return of the hostages created the perception that the war was over. If Israel suddenly launches a new offensive, many will not understand why and will view it as unprovoked Israeli aggression.

The reason is that there has not been any serious public diplomacy campaign. No systematic effort to educate allies or international audiences about Hamas’s reconstitution, and no clear explanation why Israeli commanders believe time is again working in Hamas’s favor.

This situation, though, touches on a deeper issue – how did Israel even find itself here?

How is it possible that after the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, after two years of war against the organization responsible, Hamas still exists and still controls half of Gaza?

Military force alone will not defeat Hamas

Part of the answer lies in a truth many Israelis continue to struggle to accept: military force cannot alone solve our problems. While military force is essential, and there was never a more legitimate war than the one after October 7, wars are not won only by force. They also require a political strategy.

Here is just one small example: Early in the war, Israeli forces seized Shifa Hospital, uncovering tunnels, command centers, and evidence that hostages had been held beneath and inside the facility. Hamas fighters were eliminated, and the area was cleared.

Then, months later, we awoke one morning to the news that Israeli forces had surrounded Shifa, where about 1,000 terrorists had taken refuge. It didn’t make sense. Just a few months ago, it was empty. How did it suddenly return to being a terrorist refuge? The answer was that while Israel cleared the area militarily, it left a vacuum, refusing consistently throughout the war to work with any alternative entity that could control Gaza. And in the Middle East, vacuums do not remain empty for long. Hamas filled it again.

That pattern repeated itself throughout the war – Israel would enter an area, dismantle terror infrastructure, withdraw, and then watch Hamas slowly return.

To some extent, the same thing happened in Lebanon. Israel fought Hezbollah, agreed to a ceasefire in November 2024, and assumed deterrence would hold. But there was no broader political architecture established afterward. No alternative mechanism. Then, after the war with Iran broke out at the end of February, Hezbollah resumed firing rockets into Israel once again. Even with Iran, when the recent war was over, the Israeli public largely felt like the country had failed, despite most of the defense establishment viewing the operation as a significant military success

The reason was that the moment the fighting transitioned into diplomacy and ceasefire negotiations, the Israelis lost confidence. If force did not get the Iranian regime to give up its uranium, then why would negotiations? And that may be one of the deepest strategic problems Israel faces today: there is no belief in political processes.

There are a number of factors behind this, but one of them is that Israelis are deeply traumatized by the failure of what was the last political process to try and end our longest conflict – the Oslo Accords.

While peace with Jordan was reached after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, this agreement with the Palestinians is remembered as such a failure that it impacts Israelis’ ability to consider political agreements as pathways to stability. That disenchantment is what shapes the nation’s approach to war and is why Israeli discourse revolves almost exclusively around phrases like “total victory,” “crushing the enemy,” and “victory for generations.” The language is always military, and the solutions are always military.

But if October 7 taught Israel anything, it should be that military force alone cannot sustainably solve these conflicts. Yes, Israel must remain powerful, must act preemptively against emerging threats, and must be prepared all the time to deploy military force, but after so many years of war, it should be obvious that military power by itself does not create political reality.

And unless Israel begins to think seriously about what follows the fighting – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond – it may continue winning battles while repeatedly finding itself dragged back into the same wars.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Hamas is rebuilding, and Israel faces the same dilemma again first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.