For decades, there was a consensus in the United States whereby both the Democratic and Republican parties were reflexively Zionist. Presidential candidates often fell over themselves to outdo their rivals in demonstrations of Zionist fervour. In the 2000 presidential debates, George W. Bush and Al Gore strove to outdo each other in being blindly supportive of Israel. Bill Clinton and other US presidents frequently intoned, with solemn conviction, that “America has no truer friend than Israel”.
The US Congress consistently voted through billions of dollars in funding for Israel, despite Israel being a wealthy country. Israel has long been one of the largest recipients of US financial aid, even though it has a population of only around nine million. The United States shared its most advanced military technology with Israel and repeatedly wielded its veto at the UN Security Council in Israel’s favour.
What was staggering was that Israel did so little for the United States while receiving everything. Not a single Israeli soldier fought alongside Americans in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, or any other US military intervention since 1948. The United Kingdom, by contrast, sent troops to many of these conflicts and often received short shrift from Washington in return.
Tel Aviv appeared to have the final say on US policy in the Middle East. Other considerations — such as human rights, international law, oil prices, and American self-interest — were relegated to second place.
Any American politician who dared to raise their voice in defence of Palestinian human rights or international law quickly discovered that this was the fastest route out of politics. The Zionist lobby would descend viciously upon them. Metaphorical buckets of slime were poured over the heads of any congressman or congresswoman who displayed even minimal moral scruple regarding Israel’s endless crimes against humanity. They were subjected to relentless contumely. “Anti-Semite”, “terrorist sympathiser”, “coward”, “traitor”, and “Nazi” were among the epithets hurled at anyone who acknowledged that Palestinians are human beings too.
Jewish people who had the moral courage to insist that Palestinians must be treated with decency were branded “self-hating Jews”. One American Zionist described such people as being “worse than kapos” — kapos being Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps who cooperated with guards in exchange for preferential treatment.
If a journalist or academic spoke plainly about Israel, Zionist organisations would often seek to destroy their career, usually with success. Funding was threatened, lawsuits were initiated, and reputations were deliberately sullied.
By stark contrast, American politicians frequently indulged in the most lurid anti-Arab and Islamophobic rhetoric. Anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim vitriol appeared to be an electoral asset. Newt Gingrich, a leading figure in the Republican Party, once declared that Muslims were akin to Nazis.
There is a small but growing Muslim community in the United States, comprising about two per cent of the population. Muslim Americans are ethnically diverse: Somali Americans, Palestinian Americans, Egyptian Americans, Iranian Americans, Pakistani Americans, Indian Americans, Nigerian Americans, and others. A small number are white or African-American converts to Islam. Muslims have been present in America since the seventeenth century; some of the Africans abducted from West Africa and enslaved in the Americas were Muslims.
Muslim Americans and their allies recognise Islamophobic falsehoods for what they are. Younger, left-leaning Americans increasingly perceive the Palestinian situation as it truly is: a deplorable case of illegal occupation by a racist and brutally violent power. Opinion polls show that the US public's sympathy for Israel is at its lowest level in decades, with those under 30 more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israel.
Reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented, in excruciating detail, the manifold abuses committed by the Israeli Defence Force. Palestinian Americans have been killed by Israeli forces, a reality the US government cannot entirely ignore. A Palestinian-American child has been abducted by Israel and remains imprisoned.
The Democratic Party was once the more fervently Zionist of the two major parties. Jewish Americans, who make up around three per cent of the US population, historically leaned heavily towards the Democrats. Jewish communities are highly educated, industrious, and relatively affluent, with cultural and media influence disproportionate to their numbers.
From the 1980s onwards, the Republican Party increasingly became the party of Christian fundamentalism. Christian fundamentalists constitute roughly 20 per cent of the US population and far more than that in the southern states. They identify strongly with Israel, believing that the Old Testament grants Canaan — that is, Palestine — to the Jews. Biblical narratives describing the Israelites’ wars with the Philistines are interpreted as modern political mandates.
Christian fundamentalists are, on the whole, narrow-minded and poorly informed. Many fail to grasp that around five per cent of Palestinians are Christians. Some Jewish Israelis openly revile Christianity, spitting on Christians and vandalising Palestinian churches. It is also true, as some Israeli Jews point out, that Jews were historically persecuted by Christians rather than Muslims until the mid-twentieth century.
Senator Ted Cruz, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, famously quoted the biblical verse: “Those who bless Israel shall be blessed”. He treats an Iron Age religious myth as a policy blueprint for the twenty-first century.
Religiosity is declining in the United States. There are moderate Christians who recognise the grotesque injustice inflicted upon Palestinians, as well as large numbers of atheists and agnostics, who now comprise roughly a quarter of the population.
More educated Americans are increasingly aware that Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine. Palestinian DNA is closer to that of the inhabitants of first-century Judea than that of most Jewish Israelis. The majority of Jewish Israelis are Ashkenazi, originating in northern and eastern Europe, with genetic affinities closer to Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and other neighbouring populations. Sephardic Jews, whose name derives from the Hebrew word for Spain, historically lived from Morocco to Iran, and their DNA closely resembles that of their regional neighbours.
Large-scale demonstrations against the Gaza genocide erupted on US university campuses. Some students were expelled, and foreign students had their visas revoked. Never before has the US government resorted to such draconian measures to suppress constitutionally protected protest. Those who denounced genocide were branded “anti-Semitic”, despite Palestinians themselves being Semites.
These actions have seriously damaged the US higher-education sector. With student visas cancelled and an administration hostile to foreigners, many international students are now reluctant to apply to American universities. Those expelled lose both their degrees and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees.
A significant minority within the Democratic Party now recognises that Palestinians have been subjected to decades of brutal injustice. This shift has had major political consequences. President Biden faced sustained grassroots pressure to restrain Israel’s actions in Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu rebuffed every attempt to curb his campaign of mass violence. Biden even suspended some weapons shipments, for which he was accused of betraying Israel.
The Black Lives Matter movement has expressed solidarity with Palestine, recognising clear parallels between the oppression of African Americans and that of Palestinians. The apartheid system in the West Bank is particularly egregious: Israeli settlers are tried in civilian courts, while Palestinians are subjected to military courts.
Palestinian land is routinely seized for illegal settlements, and Palestinians are harassed, assaulted, and humiliated daily. Settler violence against Palestinian civilians is frequent, often tolerated or facilitated by Israeli forces. The hypocrisy of US policy is glaring: Republicans decry undocumented migrants crossing into the US to perform menial labour, while funding and arming settlers engaged in a violent colonial project abroad.
The Democratic Party found itself torn between older voters who remained staunchly Zionist and younger voters increasingly sympathetic to Palestinian suffering. The party professes commitment to democracy, human rights, and racial equality, yet these principles were conspicuously suspended in the case of Israel.
This contradiction proved politically fatal in 2024. Democrats could not reconcile unconditional support for Israel with the moral demands of their younger base, contributing to their electoral defeat. Kamala Harris reportedly declined to select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate due to his strong Zionist stance.
Republicans, meanwhile, embraced overt hostility towards Arabs and Muslims, equating cruelty with strength. Every Israeli atrocity was excused as “self-defence”, while Palestinians were denied that right despite living under illegal occupation since 1967.
Donald Trump began his second term on 20 January 2025, pledging to end the carnage in Gaza. While violence eventually subsided, this owed less to Trump than to mounting international pressure, Israeli public disquiet, economic costs, and widespread recognition that Netanyahu was prolonging the war to delay corruption trials.
Trump’s “America First” rhetoric sits uneasily with unconditional support for a foreign state. Many Americans now recognise that US and Israeli interests do not always align. Israel supported the invasion of Iraq, encouraged confrontation with Iran, trades freely with Russia, and has been notably unhelpful on Ukraine.
Even figures such as Tucker Carlson, long associated with virulent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric, have retreated from unconditional support for Israel, calling for US neutrality.
The MAGA movement is deeply isolationist. Figures such as Marjorie Taylor Greene have openly questioned the rationale for funding Israel while many Americans live in poverty. Although herself a Christian fundamentalist, she has argued that US involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts offers no benefit to ordinary Americans.
The Zionist lobby is no longer as effective at silencing dissent. Some Democrats and Republicans are beginning to speak more openly. Israel now relies almost entirely on Republican support, which itself is weakening.
In Europe, Israel has lost much of its traditional backing. Most EU countries now recognise Palestine in some form, and few supply Israel with arms. Germany remains an exception, though younger Germans increasingly reject the logic that historical guilt justifies complicity in contemporary atrocities.
The political landscape is shifting. The change is incomplete, uneven, and fiercely contested — but it is unmistakable.