The right of Israel is losing America – Dr. Abdullah bin Musa Al Tayer
Dr. Abdullah bin Musa Al Tayer
The extremist is his own enemy, and your hands are open and your mouth is blown. This is what can be said to the ruling right. For the first time in more than two decades, a greater number of Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March 2026 showed that 60 percent of American adults view Israel unfavorably, rising to 70 percent among Americans under the age of 50. This acceleration in the loss of American public opinion is not just passing fluctuations, but rather an indication of the collapse of the American internal consensus that began during the era of US President London Johnson and was nurtured by the traditional American media machine until it was established for its market.
The American-Israeli alliance and the so-called “special relationship” were built on the idea of two democratic states, linked by values, coming together in the face of chaos and backwardness. This idea has been marketed for decades; Because the vast majority of the American people bought it. Is the sale still profitable?
Benjamin Netanyahu has made deliberate bets over the past decade on merging Israel’s image with the American right. The short-term gains have been enormous, but the long-term cost has come. Today, 80 percent of Democrats view Israel unfavorably, and while Republican support remains the strongest pillar, it has also weakened, with positive views falling 15 points in one year, and a majority of Republicans under the age of 50 now viewing Israel negatively.
The generation gap is the weapon of mass destruction that is destroying Israel’s reputation in America, and the younger generation of Americans from both parties may quickly be able to rid the strands of American politics from the grip of Tel Aviv. In 2018, 65 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 supported Israel, and the situation has changed today, with this number declining to about 23 percent. This is not a youthful idealism that will soften with age, but rather a reshaping of political positions around pivotal events, and for this generation, the pivotal event is the 18 months of destruction broadcast on television in Gaza, not the Six-Day War or the Holocaust. These young people will be senators, representatives, donors, and voters in ten to twenty years.
The strong pillar on which Israeli right-wing politicians rely is evangelical Christianity, and there is tireless work to try to recalibrate the religious alignment. 65 percent of white evangelical Protestants support Israel, as do 64 percent of American Jews. These are the two categories in which Israel enjoys majority support. The problem that worries Israel’s supporters is that these two groups are more divided than the overall numbers suggest; Young evangelicals are moving away from the religious frameworks that made Israel sacred to their parents. American Jews, on the other hand, clearly distinguish between the state and its government. 56 percent of them do not trust Netanyahu, and only 37 percent admit that they are Zionists.
America is not the same with respect to Israel. There is another group whose number is growing, namely those who are not affiliated with religions, 78 percent of whom view Israel in a negative light, along with 76 percent of black Protestants, and so do 65 percent of Catholics. Numbers and percentages indicate that the coalition of American supporters of Israel is aging, shrinking, and disintegrating very quickly.
What American elites friendly to Israel overlook is the fact that criticizing Israeli government policy is not anti-Semitism, which is refuted by Tucker Carlson and a number of American conservative activists. This conflation has long been a deliberate strategy to protect Israel from accountability, but it fails in the era of social media, not because anti-Semitism has disappeared, but because young Americans simply reject this naive conflation, and consider it offensive to their minds to insist otherwise. Worse, the continued use of anti-Semitism as a political shield diminishes its importance and weakens its logic over time.
No one who follows this relationship expects the coalition to collapse in the foreseeable future, as the institutional structure of military aid, exchange of intelligence information, and veto power in the Security Council is well-established and difficult to move. In addition, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) still has strong influence in Congress, but the era of unconditional funding is about to end. Democratic candidates, and increasingly some younger Republicans, will embrace platforms that emphasize balance rather than unconditional support.
I expect that, within one to two decades, the relationship between the United States and Israel will transform from a sacred bond to American partnerships similar to those with Türkiye or the Kingdom. Relationships are important, beneficial, and accountable. Rather, the balance tilts in favor of the American-Saudi and American-Turkish partnership at the expense of the relationship with Israel, because the partnership with Saudi Arabia and Turkey is profitable, while it is financially and morally costly with Israel.
