The war currently waged by Israel and the United States against Iran appears, at first glance, to testify to a deep and strategic alliance between the two countries – an almost ‘intimate bond’, as government spokespeople in Jerusalem are fond of emphasizing. Yet while military coordination remains tight, Israel’s political standing within the American system is eroding at an alarming pace.

In Jerusalem, this danger is still widely dismissed. Many believe the threat to the future of US-Israel relations lies primarily in the fiery rhetoric of the progressive ‘Squad’, or in the predictable talking points of figures like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. But that view misses the larger story. The most striking evidence of the strategic bankruptcy of the Netanyahu era does not come from the progressive fringe of the Democratic Party. It is emerging from its polished mainstream.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and one of the most prominent faces of the Democratic establishment, is no longer the traditional ‘friend of Israel’ who dutifully recites security platitudes prepared by pro-Israel lobbyists. In a recent interview, Newsom-a politician who studies polling data with the same care he gives to his meticulously styled hair-offered a display of cold political realism.

When he declares, with what he describes as a ‘heavy heart’ (in the finest tradition of American political sincerity), that the United States must reconsider its continued military support for Israel, and when he adopts the term ‘apartheid’ as a legitimate description of Israeli policy, he is doing more than expressing an opinion. He is signaling a turning point in the political conversation about Israel in the United States.

The taboo has been broken-not by progressive activists waving Palestinian flags, but by a politician widely viewed as a leading Democratic contender for the presidency in 2028.

Newsom’s pivot offers a preview of what may await Israel in the near future. He understands something that Jerusalem still refuses to acknowledge: criticizing Israel is no longer political suicide in Democratic primaries. On the contrary, it is increasingly becoming a political necessity.

Recent Gallup surveys show that among Democrats, sympathy for Palestinians now rivals-and in some cases surpasses-sympathy for Israel. Newsom is simply doing the math. He sees a younger generation of voters who do not remember 1967 but vividly remember 2023-a generation that no longer sees Israel as the small and righteous David, but as a powerful and occupying Goliath. In Newsom’s political calculus, Israel under Netanyahu has shifted from a strategic asset to a potential electoral liability. And he has no intention of allowing that liability to sink his presidential ambitions.

The tragedy is that this new reality is largely the product of Netanyahu’s own strategy. The self-styled ‘great strategist’ from Caesarea-who prides himself on understanding the American psyche better than Americans themselves-placed nearly all of Israel’s political chips on the Republican roulette wheel.

Over the past decade, working closely with his ambassador and confidant Ron Dermer, Netanyahu systematically burned bridges with the Democratic Party. Dermer effectively carried out a diplomatic version of the ‘Hannibal Directive’, sacrificing Israel’s bipartisan support in Washington in order to deepen its alliance with the Republican camp.

Netanyahu’s defiant 2015 speech to Congress against President Barack Obama was not an act of political courage. It was a strategic miscalculation whose consequences continue to poison Israel’s standing among Democratic lawmakers and voters. Netanyahu bet heavily on Donald Trump as a permanent political shield, forgetting that in American politics the wheel turns quickly and often.

Now that the political pendulum is swinging back toward the Democrats, Israel finds itself facing a new generation of American politicians who feel little sentimental attachment to the slogan of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ – especially when that democracy is led by a prime minister facing criminal indictments and governing alongside far-right extremists.

The nadir came in a display of political audacity bordering on strategic recklessness: Netanyahu’s accusation that the Biden administration – perhaps the last truly Zionist president to sit in the Oval Office – bore responsibility for the failures of October 7 because of an alleged shortage of ammunition.

This was not merely ingratitude. It was political blindness. By publicly attacking the very administration that organized an emergency airlift of weapons to Israel in real time, Netanyahu handed Newsom and others the perfect political justification to distance themselves from Israel.

When Governor Newsom sarcastically asks how a country that has failed to resolve the Hamas problem for two years expects to wage a war aimed at ‘changing the regime in Iran’, he is not merely mocking Israeli ambition. He is puncturing the hollow confidence of Israel’s current leadership. Distrust of Netanyahu has become widespread – not only regarding policy but also regarding his personal integrity.

It was no coincidence that Newsom concluded his remarks by linking the region’s growing instability to Netanyahu’s personal interest in avoiding a possible prison sentence.

Nor is the criticism confined to the Democratic Party. Similar voices are beginning to emerge on the American Right as well. When media figures such as Megyn Kelly publicly wonder why American blood is being shed while the Israeli prime minister’s son is relaxing on Miami Beach, it becomes clear that the cracks in Israel’s bipartisan support are widening.

Meanwhile, as the US-Israel relationship increasingly narrows to the personal bond between Netanyahu and Trump, Israel’s political opposition appears paralyzed. Yair Lapid, Yair Golan, Gadi Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman-leaders who often seem disconnected from the strategic reality unfolding before them-barely address the erosion of one of the central pillars of Israel’s national security.

Where are the delegations to Washington? Where is the painstaking work with Democratic senators and lawmakers? Where is the effort to rebuild the bipartisan foundation that Dermer helped dismantle? Instead, Israel’s opposition appears trapped in the narrow calculations of domestic politics while the strategic ground beneath the US-Israel relationship continues to shift.

The alliance between Israel and the United States may still appear solid today, but in reality it reflects the final chapter of a passing era. The automatic political support that Israel has long enjoyed in Washington is unlikely to survive beyond the tenure of the current president.

Newsom’s remarks are not merely a warning-they are a preview of what lies ahead. The American political mainstream has discovered that criticizing Israel-once considered the ‘third rail’ of American politics-may now be a pathway to the White House. And it was Benjamin Netanyahu who handed them that key on a silver platter.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)