Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a splash last week at Davos, arguing that we are living through a rupture of the post–World War II international order – not a transition.
His message was bracing: the postwar liberal international order – anchored by American leadership, the rule of law, and imperfect but real democratic commitments – has fractured, and we are not going back.
Carney’s message applies powerfully to another relationship born in the aftermath of World War II: the relationship between the United States and Israel.
Here too, we are not experiencing a temporary strain, but a rupture – one driven above all by the choices and behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the far-right governments he has led.
For most of my life, the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel was an unshakeable constant, grounded in shared interests and shared democratic values. It also was built on a basic asymmetry: one country was a global superpower; the other, a small, vulnerable state whose security the United States committed to guarantee.
The dynamic was often straightforward: Israel, facing real security threats, would ask - and the United States would largely provide, unconditionally: military assistance, diplomatic backing, political protection. Of course, the US benefitted too from, among other things, intelligence sharing and joint research.
At its best, the relationship was rooted in the belief that two imperfect democracies – one large and powerful, one small and vulnerable – were bound together by a shared commitment to pluralism, the rule of law, and the idea that security and freedom must reinforce one another.
And for decades, a sense of moral alignment also gave the relationship deep meaning in the eyes of the American public and the Jewish community.
While many Jewish Americans still hope – and fight – for the deeply meaningful relationship on which they were raised, it is, sadly, a framework that no longer survives contact with reality.
The U.S.-Israel relationship has been profoundly damaged by an Israeli government that has abandoned any serious effort to resolve the conflict with the Palestinian people and instead embraces permanent occupation, annexation, and domination.
In Gaza, the Netanyahu response to the nightmare of October 7th produced catastrophic human suffering without a credible plan for what was to follow. In the West Bank, settlement expansion, land seizures, and tolerated – and too often enabled – settler terror are systematically destroying the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.
By pursuing a path of perpetual conflict and permanent control, Israel’s leadership has put the country on a collision course with core American interests.
The government’s assault on democratic norms inside Israel itself has also accelerated the rupture. Efforts to weaken independent courts, undermine media freedom, marginalize minority communities, and attack civil society organizations place today’s Israeli government further and further from the democratic values long assumed to be the backbone of the relationship.
Also changing the reality of the relationship today is that Israel is stronger than it has ever been.
It is no longer a fragile state fighting for survival, but such a first-rate economic and military power that Prime Minister Netanyahu has called to end America’s $4 billion annual subsidy.
At the same time, Israel faces unprecedented opportunities for regional integration, with Arab states increasingly viewing cooperation - whether on security threats like Iran and terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas or on economic growth - as a strategic interest. Those opportunities, however, remain largely squandered.
As with the broader international order, there are those who hope the U.S.–Israel relationship can simply be “repaired” – that we can return to what was.
But Carney’s warning applies here as well: the rupture is deep, and pretending otherwise is a mistake.
The task now is not to revive the old relationship, but to define a new one.
A new U.S.–Israel relationship can no longer be a blank check.
It cannot be a one-way street in which American taxpayers fund military assistance, provide diplomatic immunity, and shield Israel from accountability – regardless of how Israeli power is exercised.
A sustainable relationship must be built on reciprocity and responsibility. U.S. support should be targeted – ensuring Israel can meet legitimate security threats and that Israeli policies do not operate at direct odds with American laws, values, and strategic interests, including the American interest in Palestinian freedom, security, and statehood.
That means being explicit: American support is contingent on the policies an Israeli government pursues and the way it exercises power. There must be lines beyond which the United States will not go in backing the actions even of a close ally.
This reckoning is not limited to governments.
There is also a widening rupture between an increasingly illiberal, ethnonationalist Israeli state and the majority of Jewish Americans who remain liberal, universalist, and committed to democracy, equality, and human rights.
Jewish Americans face a choice. We can cling to an old framework that demands reflexive defense of Israeli government policy, or we can articulate our own vision of a relationship rooted in our values, our moral traditions, and our responsibility to both Israelis and Palestinians – with honesty about the consequence of permanent occupation and endless war.
The bond between Jewish Americans and the people of Israel is historic and enduring. For many of us, it is deeply personal – whether we were born or lived there or just have close family and friends there.
But bonds – between nations and between peoples – are sustained not by denial, but by shared commitments and mutual responsibility.
It’s that kind of relationship - grounded in a commitment to democracy, freedom and the rule of law - that many of us already share with Israelis who are in the streets, in the courts, in the media, and in civil society, fighting the same forces of autocracy, illiberalism and ethnonationalism that we confront here at home.
The rupture is real, the old assumptions are gone, and it’s now on us to define a new U.S.–Israel relationship – one that reflects our values, rather than excusing their abandonment.
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Thank you Jeremy. I view the US under Trump and Israel under Netanyahu through the same lens: in both cases, leaders have hugely broken democratic norms, weakened the rule of law, and treated institutions as obstacles rather than guardrails. This is bad policy with lasting damage to social trust, democratic legitimacy, and each country’s moral standing. At some point, we have to be honest that real change may not be possible while either man remains in power. Renewal will require new leadership willing to restore restraint, accountability, and respect for democracy itself.
Excellent, thoughtful commentary, as usual. The paragraph that begins "the government's assault on democratic norms..." could easily have been written about--guess what other country's leader-- that it's hard to see the distinction between Israel's direction and this other nation's political direction.