华盛顿正在重新思考与以色列的关系吗？Is Washington rethinking its relationship with Israel?

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu eventually leaves office – and he may be on his way out sooner rather than later, following last month’s general election – he will leave behind a long record of damage inflicted on his country and its people, as well as on others.

Strategically, however, one of his most damaging legacies, particularly for the security and wellbeing of the Jewish state, will be the rapid deterioration of its relations with its closest and most consequential ally, the United States. This is not simply a falling-out with America’s political elite; relations with the American public have also suffered.

Worse still, replacing Netanyahu may not be enough to halt the erosion of relations between the two countries, with potentially serious consequences for Israel’s security, economy and international standing. A change of government might, at best, salvage some of what has been lost.

US President Donald Trump’s announcement, on the day of the US midterm elections, that the United States would phase out approximately $4bn in annual military aid to Israel by the end of 2026 came as a surprise, primarily because of its timing and the prospect that decades of assistance would come to such an abrupt end.

It may have been a last-ditch attempt to avert a landslide Congressional victory for the Democrats, but the decision to gradually phase out the aid had reportedly been agreed some time earlier.

Nevertheless, the direction of travel in US-Israeli relations is clear: the almost automatic and unwavering support extended by successive US administrations, particularly since 1967, is cooling. There have, of course, been occasional exceptions, but Washington has generally supported Israel even when the policies and actions of its government have not necessarily served American national interests.

There are both long-term trends and more immediate reasons behind this changing attitude in Washington and among the wider American public, the latter including Israel’s conduct under Netanyahu’s sixth government, the most far-right in the country’s history.

For some, Israel’s actions have drawn the US into conflicts that have damaged its international reputation, placed close American allies in the region in harm’s way and proved extremely costly financially.

For many on the progressive-liberal side of the political spectrum, the principal concerns have been the disproportionate use of deadly force by Israel in its war in Gaza; the brutal and ruthless occupation of the Palestinian Occupied Territories (OPT); and the continued expansion of settlements, with the clear and deeply troubling intention of annexing at least the West Bank, if not the Gaza Strip too.

Contrary to what the Israeli government often suggests, the vast majority of these critics are neither anti-Israel nor anti-Semitic.

However, they find it difficult to accept that American money and weapons have been used in the destruction of Gaza and the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, who had nothing to do with Hamas’s massacre on October 7, 2023. Nor can they accept the terrorist violence perpetrated by extremist settlers against Palestinians, often with complete impunity. Such actions run counter to the very core of their values, as they should to those of anyone with even a shred of humanity.

For the America First MAGA movement, the narrative that Israel dragged the US into a war that failed to achieve its objectives, cost the American military $47bn according to US military’s own estimates, and contributed to a sharp increase in the cost of living may be exaggerated. Nevertheless, the underlying desire to cut military aid to Israel, as well as to other countries, is genuine.

Ironically, one of the few areas where the MAGA movement and the more radical progressive-liberal camp converge is their opposition to spending billions of dollars on foreign military assistance when that money could instead be directed towards pressing domestic needs.

There is, of course, an element of populism in this argument. Addressing America’s healthcare crisis, homelessness and youth unemployment, among other problems, would require considerably more than the approximately $4 billion in annual aid Israel receives. Nevertheless, if that assistance is also seen as harming American interests, those who hold this view see little reason to continue supporting it.

Vice President JD Vance’s attempt, following the Republicans’ poor performance in the midterm elections, to place the principal responsibility for the deterioration of relations on Israel smacks of a cynical attempt to deflect blame and evade responsibility. The world’s most powerful country has its own intelligence community. It should not rely exclusively on Israeli assessments before going to war, particularly when deciding whether to heed Israeli encouragement to confront Iran. If Washington did rely on Netanyahu’s assessment, which subsequently proved misleading, whether deliberately or otherwise, that the war would be short, lead to regime change and result in the complete elimination of Iran’s nuclear programme, then responsibility must also rest with the US administration.

Nevertheless, the relationship between the US and Israel is fundamentally asymmetric. Israel obtains nearly 70 percent of its imported major arms from the US, relies on American diplomatic support in the international arena and is also an important trading partner. Washington can therefore afford, far more than Israel, to reconsider the exceptional status Israel has enjoyed in shaping American regional policies and relations with international organisations.

This is not to suggest that the close relationship between the US and Israel is about to break down completely. However, it is bound to change, driven by both geopolitical and geoeconomic considerations. Moreover, politicians, particularly with another presidential election only two years away, can increasingly sense the electorate’s changing mood. Many are therefore likely to distance themselves from an excessively close relationship with Israel and make continued support more conditional on a demonstrable convergence of interests.

To understand the significance of this shift, it is worth recalling that American support for Israel has traditionally rested on three principal pillars.

The first was sympathy following the Holocaust, together with recognition of the need for a Jewish state as a safe haven for those who had suffered persecution and for future generations. The second was the perception that the two countries shared liberal-democratic values.

The third was Israel’s emergence as a strong and independent military ally in an unstable region, capable of relying on its own military personnel and capabilities, while benefiting from American military hardware and assistance.

With the collective memory of the horrific fate of European Jewry during the Second World War gradually fading, the first pillar is weakening.

Israel’s democratic credentials are increasingly under scrutiny at home, and its democratic values are absent from its treatment of Palestinians in the OPT; the second pillar is also under strain.

Meanwhile, the war with Iran and the conflicts on other fronts have raised questions about whether Israel is ultimately more of an asset or a burden to American interests. The midterm elections have brought these tensions to a head and may foreshadow where US-Israeli relations are heading.