Are U. S. -Israel Relations Entering a New Political Era? - EUROPE SAYS
A trifecta of factors may be reshaping the U. S. -Israel relationship, as the decades-old alliance could be entering a new, less certain phase, with public opinion shifting on both sides of the aisle. On. . .
A trifecta of factors may be reshaping the U. S. -Israel relationship, as the decades-old alliance could be entering a new, less certain phase, with public opinion shifting on both sides of the aisle. On Wednesday,House Democrats voted in favor of an amendment to strip over $3 billion in annual military and humanitarian aid to Israel. The amendment ultimately failed but the fact that a majority of voting Democrats backed it signals a broader shift in the party’s posture toward Israel. Read More on AnalysisThen you’ve got President Donald Trump showing signs of pulling away from unconditional alignment with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while still apparently remaining personally close to him. Now, Vice President JD Vance has entered the fray with some of the starkest remarks yet from inside the administration. In a nearly three-hour interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week, Vance made clear that the administration’s patience with Israel’s influence over U. S. foreign policy has limits. Pressed by Rogan on whether Israel wields outsized sway in American politics, Vance didn’t deny it outright. He argued every foreign government tries to influence Washington, but conceded that Israel is “more effective at it than most. ”He went further when discussing a reported influence campaign against the Iran ceasefire he helped negotiate, accusing unnamed Israeli-linked operatives of running a “well-funded campaign” designed to keep the war going indefinitely rather than toward any real objective. Gregory Aftandilian, a professor of foreign policy and global security at the American University’s School of International Service, said Vance’s comments to Rogan reflect growing Trump administration frustration with Israel over the U. S. desire to end the Iran war. Netanyahu Not a ‘Particularly Popular Person’ in USBut it is interesting that Vance, possibly the GOP’s next presidential candidate, took this a step further in saying that Israeli “influence campaigns” were trying to “affect American political judgment,” he said to Newsweek. “Vance may be reflecting his personal views since Trump essentially put him in charge of negotiations with Iran and saw Israeli opposition to these talks as hurting a potential deal’s chances for success,” he said. Vance’s sharpest moment came when he addressed those he believes are behind the effort to sink the deal, telling them flatly to “go to hell” and insisting his loyalty runs to the American people first. He also waved off any suggestion that Trump had been pressured or “blackmailed” by Netanyahu into the Iran war, calling that idea “insane” even as he used the same interview to note that Netanyahu is “not a particularly popular person” in the U. S. right now. Taken together with a House vote just hours earlier in which a majority of voting Democrats backed cutting off Israel’s aid, Vance’s remarks suggest the second-highest office in the executive branch is now willing to say in public what was once reserved for closed-door frustration: Israel is on notice. The shifting ground on all things Israel in the U. S. has become more and more apparent even before Vance’s remarks. A Quinnipiac survey conducted in June found that 48 percent of registered voters said the U. S. is too supportive of Israel, the highest share Quinnipiac has recorded since it began asking the question in 2017, with 66 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of Republicans agreeing. Not a US ‘Foreign Policy, Only a Domestic One’Especially with a primary season that is already punishing incumbents seen as too close to Netanyahu’s government, Vance’s Rogan interview gives cover to aRepublican coalitionthat, (not so) quietly, is less unified on Israel than its leadership suggests. After all, when a sitting vice president tells the country’s largest podcast audience that Israeli-linked operatives are manipulating U. S. opinion, he’s not just picking a fight with a foreign government: he’s signaling to a younger GOP base that criticism of Israel is no longer disqualifying inside his open party. The question now is, what’s next? How is this energy going to morph between now and November and how will it influence matters that go beyond foreign policy?According to Yaacov Yadgar, professor of Israel studies at Oxford University, a potential shift is less about the state-to-state relationship and more about how Israel functions as a domestic political symbol in the U. S. “It is important to remember that this is a matter of history, an ever developing and dynamic story of the way ‘Israel’ has functioned as a major symbol in the American political culture,” he said to Newsweek. “There are clear voices in both the Republican and Progressive sides that suggest a reevaluation of this symbol. ”For Yadgar, the driving force isn’t in Israel, it’s in the U. S. “While Israel is obviously playing its role in this relationship, it seems to me to be primarily a matter of internal U. S. politics,” he said. Yadgar invoked Henry Kissinger’s famous line that “Israel does not have a foreign policy, only a domestic one,” arguing this is now true in Washington. “A variation of the same can be said…on American policy regarding Israel,” he said. “From Christian nationalists to progressive leftists, many groups within American society project on this symbol of ‘Israel’… a whole trove of values that pertain directly to their identity, to their ‘local’ or ‘domestic’ politics. ”That’s the deeper current running under Vance’s remarks. The vice president wasn’t just weighing in on Iran or Netanyahu’s popularity, he was, whether he framed it this way or not, playing out exactly the dynamic Yadgar describes: Israel as a proxy battle for what kind of country—or even what kind of party—America thinks it can, or wants to, be.