In the future, US support for Israel is likely to become more conditional and transactional.

Whatever the outcome of the deadlocked negotiations between the United States and Iran, this war has revealed the severe strain on the US-Israel relationship. Far from reaffirming the durability of the partnership, the conflict has exposed a widening gap between American and Israeli strategic priorities, intensified domestic political backlash within the United States, and raised an increasingly unavoidable question: how long can Washington sustain a relationship in which it bears disproportionate costs while exercising diminishing influence? 

This question has increased in salience as the temporary ceasefire negotiated between the United States and Iran receives an indefinite extension, a ceasefire that Israel has tried its best to undermine. This dimension became very clear during the US-Iran talks in Islamabad on April 12–13, when Israel continued its attacks on Lebanon—a major sticking point in the negotiations—despite President Donald Trump’s plea to de-escalate bombing during the negotiations.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defiant tone was evident in a televised address during the Islamabad talks. Not only did he neglect to mention the negotiations, but he also pointedly declared, “The battle is not yet over,” directly contradicting President Trump’s desire to bring the war to a close.

For decades, US-Israel ties have been framed and sold in the United States as uniquely resilient—anchored in shared values, overlapping interests, and deep domestic support. The relationship is no longer defined primarily by convergence, but by divergence. Israel retains substantial freedom of action, even when its choices undermine US objectives and leave the United States to absorb the diplomatic, economic, and security consequences. This imbalance is now becoming politically and strategically untenable.

From Israel’s perspective, the continued campaign against Hezbollah is inseparable from the war against Iran and must be pursued regardless of America’s ceasefire arrangements with Iran, and if the bombing of Lebanon derails its ally’s negotiations with Iran, so much the better. From Washington’s standpoint, continued Israeli strikes risk collapsing the diplomatic framework it has painstakingly assembled, potentially dragging the United States into a wider regional war that it neither seeks nor controls. The result is a familiar but increasingly acute dilemma: an ally whose security doctrine is expansive and escalation-prone, and a patron whose strategic horizon, despite the idiosyncrasies of the current president, is more constrained.

This pattern is not new. What is new is the scale of the costs it imposes on the United States—and the growing unwillingness of the American public to bear them. The war in Iran has reinforced a perception, already widespread after years of Middle Eastern entanglements, that US foreign policy is being shaped by the priorities of regional allies rather than by clearly defined American interests.

The Decline of US Public Support for Israel

Public opinion data suggest that this perception is translating into a significant erosion of support for Israel. Recent Pew Center polling indicates that six in 10 Americans now hold an unfavorable view of the Israeli government, a striking reversal from the traditionally high levels of support of earlier decades. The shift is especially pronounced among younger Americans and Democrats, but its implications extend across the political spectrum. Even among groups that remain broadly supportive of Israel, such as Jewish Americans and Evangelicals, there is growing unease about the costs and consequences of the relationship.

This shift matters because the US-Israel partnership has always depended as much on domestic politics as on strategic calculation. Congressional support, military aid, and diplomatic backing have been sustained by a broad consensus that Israel is both a moral ally and a strategic asset.

The role of the pro-Israel lobby must be understood in this changing context. For decades, advocacy organizations such as AIPAC have played a central role in reinforcing congressional support for Israel, often ensuring that US policy remains aligned with Israeli preferences. But their influence has never been absolute; it has been effective in large part because it operated within a political environment that was already broadly sympathetic to Israel. As public opinion grows more critical, the ability of these groups to maintain unconditional support is likely to diminish. They may still shape policy at the margins, but they cannot insulate the relationship from broader societal trends indefinitely.

Equally important is the growing fragmentation within the American Jewish community. Long regarded as a cornerstone of support for Israel, this community is increasingly divided over Israeli policies, particularly in the context of prolonged conflicts, high civilian casualties, and increasingly credible accusations of genocide in Gaza against the Israeli government. In a Washington Post poll conducted in September 2025, 61 percent of American Jews said that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and 39 percent believed it had committed genocide. This internal division further erodes the assumption of a unified domestic base of support for the partnership.

A Recalibration of US-Israel Ties

Taken together, these developments point to a deeper structural issue: the perception that Israel is, in effect, free riding on the United States. The term is politically sensitive, but analytically difficult to avoid. Israel benefits from extensive US military aid, diplomatic protection, and strategic backing. While Israel remains a capable military partner and a valuable source of intelligence and technological innovation, its actions have also increased the risk of regional escalation and imposed additional strategic and financial burdens on the United States. The question is no longer whether Israel provides value to the United States, but whether the current terms of the relationship reflect a fair and strategically coherent exchange. The answer, increasingly, appears to be no.

This does not mean that a rupture in US-Israel relations is imminent. The strategic, institutional, and historical ties between the two countries are too deep to unravel quickly. But it does mean the relationship is likely to undergo a recalibration—one that could significantly alter its character.

In practical terms, this recalibration could take several forms. The United States may begin to place more explicit conditions on military aid, linking it to Israeli compliance with ceasefire agreements, to limits on escalation in secondary theaters such as Lebanon, and even to its continuing Israeli settlement activities in the Palestinian Territories. 

Diplomatic support in international forums, including the UN, may become more selective, reflecting a greater willingness to distance US policy from specific Israeli actions. At the same time, Washington may seek to diversify its regional partnerships, reducing its reliance on Israel as a central pillar of its Middle East strategy and giving greater weight to countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

Such changes would mark a departure from the traditional model of the relationship, in which support for Israel was often treated as an end in itself. Instead, the partnership would become more explicitly instrumental and transactional—valued for what it contributes to US interests, but subject to revision if those contributions diminish or if the costs become too high.

The political trajectory within the United States reinforces this possibility. As younger generations, who are markedly more critical of Israel and more sympathetic to Palestinian aspirations, assume greater influence, the incentives for unconditional support are likely to weaken further. Future administrations—particularly those responsive to these shifting attitudes—may be more willing to challenge Israeli policies or to redefine the terms of the relationship.

For Israel, this presents a strategic challenge that extends beyond the immediate context of the Iran War. Its security doctrine has long assumed a very high degree of US backing, both material and diplomatic. If that backing becomes more selective and conditional, Israel may face difficult choices about how to balance its pursuit of regional dominance with the need to preserve its most important partnership.

For the United States, the challenge is to align its commitments more consistently with its regional and global interests. This requires recognizing that the current trajectory of the relationship carries significant risks and is increasingly untenable. The Iran War has demonstrated that those risks are no longer hypothetical. They are immediate, tangible, and politically salient.

The broader implication is that the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel is entering a period of renegotiation. The terms that have governed it for decades—unconditional support, broad public backing, and a high degree of strategic alignment—are no longer assured. In their place, a more contested and conditional framework is likely to emerge.

Whether this process leads to a stable recalibration or to a more profound rupture will depend on the choices made by both sides. If Israel continues to pursue an expansive and escalation-driven strategy without regard for US concerns, and if American public opinion continues to turn against the relationship, the pressure for a significant downgrading of ties will grow. Such a downgrading need not take the form of a formal break; it could instead manifest as a gradual reduction in support, a narrowing of cooperation, and a willingness to treat Israel more like a normal ally than an exceptional one.

That outcome, once difficult to imagine, is now firmly within the realm of possibility. The Iran War has not ended the US-Israel partnership. But it has stripped away many of the assumptions that sustained it—and in doing so, it has opened the door to a future in which Israel can no longer take unconditional American support for granted.

About the Author: Mohammed Ayoob

​​Mohammed Ayoob is a university distinguished professor emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University. His books include The Many Faces of Political Islam (University of Michigan Press, 2008), Will the Middle East Implode? (2014), and, most recently, From Regional Security to Global IR: An Intellectual Journey (2024). He was also the editor of Assessing the War on Terror (2013).

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