US is falling out of love with Israel as war machine rumbles on

The once tight and seemingly unbreakable relationship between the US and Israel appears to be haemorrhaging. Washington’s decades-long unquestioning support of Tel Aviv – to the tune of ­billions of dollars annually, diplomatic cover, including automatic vetoes of UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli war crimes, and the unlimited supply of military hardware – is facing growing public opposition as well as political censure at the highest levels.

In the latest development along these lines, Democratic candidate Jack Schlossberg, grandson of the late president John F Kennedy, said he supported the effort to block arms sales to Israel and claimed that the US had already lost the war in Iran.

Schlossberg, who is half Jewish, was speaking during a recent candidates’ forum at the Stephen Wise Synagogue in Manhattan, the New York Post and other media outlets reported. His comments were in support of a resolution advanced last month by left-wing Jewish senator Bernie Sanders to deny Israel $440-­million in bombs and military equipment. Israel receives the US’s highest foreign aid package, valued at $3.8-billion annually, excluding other military packages worth billions since the wars on Gaza and Iran.

Sanders’s resolution gained significant traction, with 40 senators backing it, The Guardian reported. Only 15 of the House Democratic Caucus’s 47 members supported similar measures last year.

“I would have voted with 85% of Democrats to block those funds to Israel,” Schlossberg said.

After Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he wanted to do in Lebanon what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had done in Rafah, Gaza, Democrat senator Chris van Hollen said he had seen first-hand how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had razed Rafah. “No American taxpayer dollars should be used to support this,” Van Hollen wrote on his website.

In its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, the IDF implements its Dahiya Doctrine, a strategy for the indiscriminate destruction of civilian infrastructure and facilities to weaken morale among enemy civilian populations.

Condemnation spreads

But the growing condemnation of Israel – because of its invasion of southern Lebanon, continuing war on Gaza and collusion with US President Donald Trump in the Iran war – is not limited to Democrats. It is growing among Republican representatives and their supporters, as well as independents.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 60% of US adults have an unfavourable view of Israel, up from 53% last year, and 59% have little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs, up from 52% last year.

In both political parties, the majority of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively. The Pew poll found that 57% of Republicans aged 18 to 49 have an unfavourable view of Israel, up from 50% last year, showing the generational shift and a growing trend.

Significantly, several major Republican influencers with millions of followers who have been supporting Trump have also turned on him.

Former Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, who actively campaigned for Trump during the last election, slammed the war on Iran and the president’s unquestioning support of Israel. Conservative Megyn Kelly, another Republican influencer, has turned on Trump for similar reasons.

One of their main arguments is that America should come first and the billions of dollars given to Israel should be spent on the needs of Americans.

These developments are significant because one of the strongest lobby groups in the US, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, has a strong track record in funding pro-Israel politicians through its associated committees while lobbying against those critical of Israel and working to undermine their political careers.

“That shift reflects where the American people are,” said Sanders. “Americans, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, want to see our tax money invested in improving lives here at home – not used to kill innocent women and children in the Middle East and put American troops in harm’s way as part of Netanyahu’s illegal wars of expansion.”

Doing Netanyahu’s bidding

In addition to the collective frustration at the billions of dollars spent on foreign wars, as millions of Americans battle poverty, homelessness and a lack of medical care, is Netanyahu’s influence on Trump’s decision to attack Iran.

The New York Times reported that Netanyahu made a “hard sell” for attacking Iran, outlining a number of options for regime change. He did so in a meeting in the White House’s high-security situation room during his trip to Washington, DC in February – just before the attack on Iran. Mossad head David Barnea attended digitally. This was one of seven trips Netanyahu has made to the US since early 2025 and Trump’s taking office.

There have also been reports of Mossad agents being involved in protests and unrest in Iran, including in the Israeli media. This included providing agents with espionage and sabotage equipment and encouraging protesters to take to the streets.

Netanyahu’s encouragement of a US attack on Iran was the culmination of decades of warnings from him that Iran was on the verge of building a nuclear weapon.

Former US secretary of state John Kerry said Netanyahu had tried to persuade several US administrations to attack Iran, including Barack Obama’s. This was echoed by another former secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who remains a strong supporter of Israel, and Obama confirmed as much during an interview with The New Yorker.

Now, as the increasingly shaky ceasefire between the US and Iran hangs by a thread, Netanyahu has urged for a continuation of the war. “There’s still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran,” he said in a recorded interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes that aired last week. “There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled, there are still proxies that Iran supports, there are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce… there’s work to be done.”

Israel’s desire for regional hegemony and land expansion goes beyond its security needs and has been part of the state’s early founding fathers’ ambition for an Eretz Israel that envisioned a larger state than the borders established in 1948. The charter of Netanyahu’s Likud Party advocates a Jewish state from the river to the sea, meaning all of current-day Israel as well as incorporating surrounding territory.

And as Netanyahu repeatedly is called to face court hearings on the various criminal and corruption charges he is facing in Israel, he asks to be excused because of “security developments”.

Without any war continuing, the Israeli leader could face significant prison time at home if found guilty in his long-running corruption trial. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.