The collapse of America’s absolute support for Israel policy

Although the strategic alliance between the United States of America and Israel has always been one of the pillars of the United States system of government, recent years have witnessed unprecedented changes in the public mood towards this iron commitment to Israel’s interests.

While this change in the Democratic camp was understandable, as a liberal trend focused on economic and social interests rather than an ideological trend, a breakthrough and change in the general mood of the Republican Party with its various conservative spectrums was completely unexpected.

The Democratic Party and its base developed faster and were more accepted among colored minorities in the United States, which is why Barack Obama emerged among them as the first black president of the United States, and Ilhan Omar, the first veiled Muslim woman, was able to enter the US Congress on the lists of the Democratic Party, and Democrat Rashida Tlaib was the first Palestinian woman to speak out in support of the Palestinian cause in Congress.

Among its ranks, a young Muslim man, Zahran Mamdani, who is a strong critic of Israel, now stands out, leading the competition for the seat of mayor of New York, the largest American city and its most prominent financial and business center. If this indicates anything, it indicates that loyalty to Israel is no longer unanimously agreed upon in the rules of the Democratic Party.

As for the Republican Party, which is considered an incubator for American conservatism with its principled ideological commitments, it has been less able to change and alter positions over the past decades, including its firm commitment to Israel based on religious and interest-based foundations.

However, the winds of change brought by October 7, 2023, as it seems, were not limited to the region and the region, but rather went beyond them to reach the solid core of the Republican Party in the United States, which is the extremist white core that has always formed the origin of the party’s vision that professes its pride in a white America with ancient European Christian values ​​that does not accept many of the liberal developments witnessed by American society in particular, and Western societies in general. In the last two decades, especially in the field of sexual identity, absolute freedoms, abortion, and others.

This change seemed clear in the statements of figures who are among the voices that represent the solid white conservative core of the Republican Party, such as the well-known right-wing journalist Tucker Carlson, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and even Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the White House, and advisor to President Trump during his first term in office.

These people are united by their strong previous commitment to supporting US President Donald Trump, and being the most prominent faces of the “America First” (MAGA) movement, and they are among the voices heard in conservative white communities known for their constant support for the Republican Party.

Most importantly of all, they were among the strongest voices in defense of Israel in the years preceding the Al-Aqsa flood.

But something has changed in this trend, as is evident from the change in the discourse of these and other figures. They turned in their discourse against Israel and began loudly criticizing its great influence in American politics, revealing the extent of the penetration of the pro-Israel lobby, which is represented by several institutions, the most important of which is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where the degree of interference in American internal politics and its direction reaches the point of prioritizing Israeli interests over American interests.

These figures have begun to strongly criticize this penetration and expose the names of American politicians known for their unlimited support for Israel, and even accuse them of betraying their country and putting the interests of a foreign country ahead of the interests of the United States.

Tucker Carlson has gone out in more than one interview on the podcast he runs to attack a number of Republican politicians, such as Senators Tom Cruise and Lindsey Graham, who are known for their constant and steadfast defense of Israel. He even said in an episode broadcast about two weeks ago that these two people’s standing with Israel without limits and putting its interests ahead of those of the United States amounts to betrayal of their country.

As for Member of Parliament Marjorie Taylor Greene, she did not leave a media outlet without attacking Israel and accusing it of genocide in Gaza. She rejects the Trump administration’s support for Netanyahu in this war. She expresses these positions on her official website, where she identifies herself as a defender of the slogan (America First), and that she refuses to put the interests of foreign countries ahead of the United States.

These are just samples of influential and well-known figures on the American Republican far right who have changed their declared positions on Israel and have begun to criticize the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and sometimes even call it by its name. genocide. Indeed, some of these voices, especially Carlson, have begun to hint at possible Israeli involvement in the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who Republican pages on social media claim was assassinated when he began hinting at changing his position on Israel and its war on the Gaza Strip.

This matter caused shock to the Israeli government, prompting Netanyahu to release a video denying any involvement in Kirk’s killing, and also prompted him to allocate various meetings and large budgets to support media campaigns, whether by himself, or through some social media influencers, to try to convince this growing trend in the Republican Party that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, and is not interfering in American domestic politics.

Also, a few days ago, AIPAC broadcast a paid advertisement on several American channels – whether those supporting Republicans or Democrats – trying to justify its work in favor of Israel, and to convince American public opinion that serving Israel’s interests in America is beneficial to the United States!

Ironically, the announcement itself says that AIPAC works among American politicians as a pressure group that guarantees Israel’s interests, which is exactly what those Republican voices are complaining about, who have come to see putting Israel’s interests ahead of their country’s interests as an unacceptable betrayal.

Perhaps the most prominent turning point in the positions of many of this party’s leaders regarding Israel was what appeared to be the Israeli attack on Iran, and the public American involvement in it, and that process was of course one of the outcomes of what was happening in Gaza.

These voices came out to reject the United States entering into wars on behalf of Israel, and criticism subsequently escalated, exposing all forms of Israeli interference in American internal politics.

This pivotal point in the conflict revealed that the reality of the rift and disagreement is based on the idea of ​​the extent of the United States’ involvement in Israel’s conflicts. Here, a sharp disagreement emerged between two trends: nationalist and religious, the latter currently controlling the Trump administration, and thus the Republican Party’s policy.

This evangelical movement, which remains absolutely loyal to Israel, its vision of the conflict is based in fact on a religious principle. This is clearly visible through the statements of its most prominent members, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who has always said in the media that the war in the Gaza Strip is in fact a religious war, and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, who is obsessed with the idea of ​​the Red Cow and rebuilding the alleged Third Temple in place of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to the point of hosting the Israeli Rabbi Tzachi Mamo, who is responsible for this matter, on the National Day of Prayer near the US Congress. In Washington in January 2024, and the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who does not tire of repeating his successive religious statements about Christ and the Promised Land, making the observer wonder: Is he the US ambassador to Israel or vice versa?

As well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was famous for his appearance drawing a black cross with ashes on his forehead last spring, and we do not forget, of course, the son-in-law of the US President, Jared Kushner, who apparently returned to the arena of American politics recently through the issue of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza.

These figures and their religious orientations show that the division occurring in the Republican Party towards Israel has begun to take an ideological direction as well, and this is natural given the ideological nature that characterizes this party compared to the Democratic Party, as we mentioned above.

Therefore, today we are witnessing a deepening of this rift in the structure of the Republican Party between what is religious, which advances its vision of sacred religious texts, and what is nationalistic, which advances the interest of the American white race.

US President Trump seems to hesitate between the two directions, given his volatile nature. It is clear that the decisive point in the decline of either of the two trends in the face of the other is mainly linked to the trends of the growing youth base of this party among the members of the current generation, which has clearly become biased towards the nationalist orientation more than the religious one, and has come to see Israel as a burden on the United States of America, and is no longer afraid of accusations of anti-Semitism in its public criticism of Israel, and it seems that this matter will continue to escalate in the Republican Party, even if At a slower pace among Democratic Party supporters.

Whatever the results, one fact has become clear and must be acknowledged: Israel is no longer the subject of an American consensus, whether in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, and this new fact must be exploited and built upon.