Why Netanyahu and AIPAC Are Losing the Democratic Party

Eroding Democratic support for Israel isn’t inevitable. Israel's leaders and allies in AIPAC need to reassess their strategy and choices.

Even with Israel and the United States at war with Iran, Jewish media remain fixated on what Jewish Insider calls, “the rapid turn within the Democratic Party against Israel.”

This week’s alarm bells were set off by California Governor Gavin Newsom’s comments about Israel, apartheid and the need to reconsider military aid.

Newsom’s comments came in the wake of a new Gallup poll finding, for the first time in its long-running survey, that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis – 41 to 36 percent.

The data reflect a rupture in U.S.-Israel relations that is largely self-inflicted - driven by the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu and the hard-edged political strategy of AIPAC.

I’ll admit: I’m not a fan of asking Americans which side they “sympathize with more.” The question forces a zero-sum choice that mirrors the worst dynamic of the conflict itself.

In reality, most Americans sympathize with both peoples: Israelis who deserve security and Palestinians who deserve freedom, dignity and self-determination.

But even if the question is flawed, the trend it reveals is unmistakable. Support for Israel in the United States is eroding – particularly among younger Americans.

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For decades, Israeli leaders – and Jewish American leaders – understood that bipartisan support in Washington is a vital Israeli national security asset.

Yet Netanyahu gambled that asset away by openly aligning Israel with one side of America’s political divide.

His governments pursued policies – the devastation of Gaza, relentless settlement expansion and the abandonment of any credible path to Palestinian statehood – that made it increasingly difficult for Americans, especially younger ones, to see Israel as a country pursuing both security and peace.

Now, political leaders – like Newsom and most other Democratic presidential contenders – are reflecting this shift.

Across the Democratic Party, clear-eyed criticism of Israeli government policy is becoming the norm. And it is hard to imagine in 2028 any Democratic primary contender clinging to what, in 2011, I termed a part of the ‘rulebook of American politics’ – unquestioning support for unconditional aid to Israel.

But support isn’t eroding only on the left. Israel is rapidly losing support from both ends of the American political spectrum.

Figures like Tucker Carlson and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right are voicing a nationalist critique that sees Israel not as a strategic ally but as a liability.

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If Netanyahu’s choices helped produce this reality, AIPAC’s response has made it worse.

As defending Israeli government policy has become harder, AIPAC has escalated its political engagement, spending unprecedented sums in American elections to defeat candidates who criticize Israeli policy.

It’s a strategy that is already backfiring.

You cannot buy back political legitimacy with campaign spending once you’ve lost it with voters.

Political intimidation cannot substitute for cultivating honest support. When it becomes impossible to defend Israel’s policies on the merits, no amount of campaign spending can fix the problem.

Worse still, the increasingly aggressive use of money and political muscle by AIPAC and allied groups risks feeding precisely the stereotypes and tropes that Jewish communities have struggled for generations to combat.

The result is a vicious cycle: the harder Israeli policy becomes to defend, the more aggressively AIPAC applies political pressure – and the greater the backlash it generates.

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The rupture Netanyahu and AIPAC have caused in the U.S.-Israel relationship is deeply troubling for those of us who care about Israel. But it is not irreversible.

Repair must begin with political change in Israel itself – and we can only hope that Israeli voters will soon choose new leadership and a different direction.

I am convinced that a government committed to really ending the war in Gaza, halting annexation in the West Bank and seriously pursuing a path toward Palestinian statehood can rebuild the support that has been squandered.

Some in the Israeli opposition have been misled into believing that Democratic criticism of Israeli policy is rooted in hostility toward Israel or even in antisemitism.

That’s wrong.

My direct experience is that most in the Democratic Party remain open to a strong bilateral relationship with Israel – but only if Israel demonstrates real seriousness about pursuing peace and Palestinian statehood alongside Israel.

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The American Jewish establishment must also reconsider its approach.

For too long, critics of Israeli government policy have been reflexively labeled anti-Israel or antisemitic. That strategy is backfiring. When accusations of antisemitism are stretched to cover ordinary policy disagreement, it weakens the fight against real antisemitism.

And when charges of antisemitism are weaponized to harm universities, target immigrants or undercut the First Amendment, it damages both American democracy and Israel.

The Gallup numbers should be a blaring wake-up call; statements from Newsom, Ruben Gallego and other potential ’28 contenders an alarm.

Yet, a painful long-term rupture in the U.S.-Israel relationship is not inevitable.

Different choices can still repair it.

Israeli and Jewish communal leaders must not hide behind empty rhetoric about Democrats “turning against Israel.” They need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask what Israel’s leaders – and their allies in Washington – did to drive them away.

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