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Israel is losing its grip on U.S. politics

By Dave Reed , Mondoweiss,  April 12, 2026  

We’ve been covering the shift in American politics on Israel for years. Donald Trump’s disastrously failed war on Iran has accelerated it.

For years, conventional wisdom held that support for Israel was a third rail in U.S. politics. Phil Weiss has written a library of analysis and coverage on that here at Mondoweiss over the past 20 years. Uncritical support for Israel was toxic for politicians to touch, impossible to oppose, and self-reinforcing across both parties through the combined pressure of donor money, media consensus, and institutional loyalty. That consensus is broken forever. It didn’t break because of a sudden moral awakening in Washington. That will never happen, on virtually any issue. If you need any more proof of that, just look at the way the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein are being treated, or refer to the fact that even massacres of schoolchildren haven’t moved Congress to do something about guns in the country. The consensus across the political elite on Israel broke because Israel’s conduct in Gaza, Lebanon, and now in its open effort to torpedo an end to the war with Iran, has become a liability that American politicians can no longer ignore.

Michael Arria, our U.S. correspondent, documented this week how military aid to Israel has finally become a true litmus test in Democratic Party primaries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced she will vote against all military aid to Israel, including weapons classified as “defensive,” a position she had previously hedged. Even J Street, the organization meant to offer a counter to AIPAC’s extremism but locked in perpetual confusion about its identity, is even now opposing U.S. support for the Iron Dome missile defense system. AIPAC, once considered the most powerful of all the many lobby groups, is now a liability in Democratic races, losing key primaries and watching candidates run against it by name. A recent NBC News poll shows just 13 percent of Democrats view Israel positively. These numbers are not marginal; they represent a fundamental and permanent realignment of the Democratic base. Politicians, candidates, and political institutions are paying attention.

This fracturing is thankfully not limited to the left. The Iran war has cracked open the MAGA coalition in ways that the genocide in Gaza could not. Powerful conservative commentators commanding huge audiences and figures closely aligned with the MAGA movement have been openly and harshly critical of Trump over the war. The widespread, and correct, view is that Netanyahu manipulated Trump into a conflict that serves Israeli interests, not American ones. The critique of the tail wagging the dog is now being advanced loudly by people who would never have entertained it two years ago. The political ground is moving, dramatically, in the months before an all-important mid-term election. Republican figures with aspirations for more power, such as J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, are beginning to distance themselves from the Iran debacle………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/weekly-briefing-israel-is-losing-its-grip-on-u-s-politics/

April 16, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA