In Congress, bipartisan support for Israel is eroding

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump met at the White House for the first time since the start of the war in Iran. Both leaders framed the outcome of their closed-door talk positively, despite recent reported tensions between the two. Shortly afterward, Trump took to Truth Social to say he had a “very good meeting” and that “many important subjects were discussed.”

The visit, prompted by the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., stirred up some commotion—including from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who called for the federal government to enforce an International Criminal Court warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest. In 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s actions in the West Bank to be illegal, and the ICC accused Netanyahu of war crimes.

Netanyahu’s arrival in Washington, D.C., comes as some Democratic lawmakers appear to be moving away from supporting Israel. In the final weeks before the U.S. House of Representatives started its monthlong recess, some lawmakers from both sides of the aisle attempted to strip funding from Israel and prohibit the integration of U.S. and Israeli defense technology. While none of the amendments passed, analysts expect lawmakers to continue introducing similar legislation.

“We’re seeing a trend,” said Guy Ziv, an associate professor of foreign policy at American University in Washington, D.C. “And while all these resolutions have failed, they’re failing in smaller numbers. So we may see something that actually succeeds in the next Congress.”

In June, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced an amendment to strip Section 219—the U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative—from the National Defense Authorization Act. The revision failed to get a vote, and last week, the House passed the budget bill with Section 219 intact, sending it on to the Senate.

In July, Massie proposed another amendment that would cut $3.3 billion in foreign military financing and general aid to Israel from a State Department appropriations bill. Massie’s proposal, which did not gain support from any other Republicans, failed in a 314–104 vote, but it split Democratic leadership—with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., voting against the measure and Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., voting for it.

Robert McCaw, government affairs department director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the July Massie amendment vote a “watershed moment.”

“Although 314 House members voted to continue this funding, [this] vote showed that the era of nearly unanimous congressional support for Israel is ending,” McCaw told me in an email. “The 104 members who voted ‘YES’ sent an unmistakable message: American weapons, intelligence and taxpayer dollars must no longer be used to violate human rights, entrench illegal occupation or fuel ever-expanding wars across the region.”

Since President Harry S. Truman recognized Israel’s independence in 1948, support for Israel has been a major component of bipartisan American foreign policy. The Massie amendment attempted to slash funds from a 10-year bilateral military aid agreement that provides Israel with U.S. government grants to purchase American-made military equipment. But since the two countries established the aid agreement in 2016, U.S. public opinion has become less supportive of Israel, especially after the recent war in Gaza.

“Today, for the first time, we’re seeing more Americans saying they sympathize with the Palestinians than with Israel,” said Ziv. “And this is especially true with the younger generation.”

Ziv pointed to a July poll by Harvard University’s Center for American Political Studies, the Harris Poll, and HarrisX that found that 60% of 18- to 24-year-old voters supported Hamas over Israel.

“Which is just incredible if you think about it, because Hamas shares none of these young people’s progressive values, right?” said Ziv. “Like none whatsoever.”

Ziv added that the younger generation primarily gets its news from social media. “There’s just a tremendous amount of ignorance about the history and about the full context of what it is they are seeing and reading and hearing,” he said. “Of course, I don’t think [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government has really helped … never mind that [Netanyahu’s administration doesn’t] speak for the majority of Israelis or even the coalition they represent.”

Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said this trend away from Israel among U.S. voters helps explain how some Democratic leaders are voting in Congress. Democratic lawmakers criticized Massie’s appropriations bill amendment as ill-conceived and overly broad, but many still supported the revisions as a symbolic vote that they nevertheless knew would not pass the Republican-majority House. Even Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has long presented herself as a reliable supporter of Israel, voted to pass Massie’s amendment, which she said brought “an unfortunate choice to the House.”

Even though Pelosi is not seeking reelection, Kontorovich wasn’t surprised by her vote. “She’s a political survivor, and she wants to survive this, too,” he said. “She still wants to be in good favor with where she sees her party is going.”

While Netanyahu recently discussed a desire for Israel to phase out reliance on U.S. military aid in a 60 Minutes interview, Kontorovich said that process is “harder when it’s done suddenly.”

Susan Michael, U.S. president of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told me in an email that what Netanyahu appears to be addressing in the interview is less about declaring independence from the United States and more about moving away from an aid-dependent image and toward one that reflects Israel’s role as a strategic partner. “This is consistent with Israel’s long-expressed desire to strengthen its own defense capabilities while continuing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. on shared security interests,” wrote Michael.

Michael said she would hesitate to characterize where the broader direction of Democratic leadership is headed, but she admitted that her group is “concerned over what appears to be a growing anti-Israel movement within the Democratic ranks.”

In another recent spotlight moment for the Democratic Party, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, spoke about the U.S.-Israel alliance at an Israeli university in early July. Emanuel criticized Netanyahu’s government and proposed rolling back U.S. military aid, among other things.

Ziv said Emanuel’s speech “was coming with what I would regard as kind of a tough love approach, which I think Israelis should hear. … They need to understand where Americans are coming from, even if it’s not music to their ears. I think he did that from a supportive stance.”

In contrast, Ziv says that Rep. Khanna’s visit to Israel this month was more of a “publicity stunt,” demonstrating what he called two microcosms in the Democratic Party.

“Most Democrats are going to be critical of the Israeli government,” said Ziv. “But one is approaching it more from a tough love perspective, the other one is trying to go where the wind blows and just trying to showcase Israel and in a bad light without a very constructive approach.”

With Israel and the United States scheduled to hold national elections about a week apart this fall, Ziv says there will be an opportunity to find out if the attitudes among young voters and the Democratic Party will change, or if the damage done is irreversible.

“The question is, if they produce a different government, potentially can that change attitudes here?” he said.