Are the U.S. and Israel Still Allies?

The United States and Israel have had one of the most fruitful alliances of the post-World War II era. But that is in jeopardy now, for a number of reasons, and it will take work by both parties if their alliance is to continue.

The biggest contributor to fraying of the ties is the accusation of “Gaza genocide.” It is an invented atrocity but nonetheless exists as an established fact across most of the mainstream U.S. media and information landscape. It is perhaps one of the most successful propaganda campaigns of modern times.

The terror attacks of October 7, 2023, by Hamas were so horrific that they galvanized a large outpouring of support for Israel around the world. But even then, voices in support of Hamas rang out—like that of Cornell University professor Russell Rickford, who said he was “exhilarated,” adding: “What has Hamas done? Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility. That’s what they have done.”

Israel’s grace period in the public eye lasted barely until it responded to the Hamas invasion with the military force required to root out an enemy on its border, one that is hell-bent on Israel’s destruction. Once the reality of urban combat against an opponent whose main strategy was to use its own civilians as fodder was fully realized, opinion turned swiftly and, by January 2024, the International Court of Justice had held a hearing on whether Israel’s actions constituted genocide. The result, the BBC reported: “The U.N.’s top court has ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza but stopped short of telling it to halt the war.”

The following months solidified this idea among Israel’s many enemies in the global community and also led to major protests in the United States. It became conventional wisdom that, although Hamas had done an awful thing, Israel was the one committing war crimes.

This narrative is patently false, but it allowed criticism of Israel to become mainstream. It began with the pro-Palestinian and revolutionary political left but rapidly spread. Unexpected voices in the chorus came from the fringe of the American political right—people like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and a collection of other podcasters whose dislike of Israel is thin cover for antisemitism.

The Gaza genocide claim soon was joined by many other debunked smears, like the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, and on through claims that Israel dragged the United States into the first Gulf War. Those were combined with a sickening resurgence of every type of anti-Jewish canard designed to stir up hate.

It was suddenly in vogue and edgy to claim to be an anti-Zionist but to spew the most vile lies. This led to several outcomes, including an acceptance of far too much of this by low-information media consumers. But second was a backlash against this from conservatives who do not share this infection of the mind: “(Tucker) Carlson invited white nationalist Nick Fuentes onto his podcast recently and failed to challenge his guest’s bigoted remarks about Jews, setting off a cascade of righteous outrage,” The Washington Post reported.

The first outcome is the more concerning. Popular sentiment about Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance has fallen to an all-time low, according to the Pew Research Center, which reported in April 2026: “Six-in-ten Americans have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel, up seven percentage points since last year and nearly twenty points since 2022. The share of U.S. adults with a very unfavorable view of Israel (28 percent) has also increased nine points since last year—and nearly tripled from 10 percent in 2022.”

These feelings are even more pronounced among younger Americans, with up to 70 percent acknowledging they have an unfavorable view of Israel. That will take some work to fix. The outcome of the Iran war will have an impact, but a new rationale or explanation of the existing relationship must be made to demonstrate why the alliance with Israel is in the U.S. interest.

This will be an uphill battle. Most of the education system holds a distinct anti-Israel bias, which has led to a lack of historical understanding of Israel’s founding and the more than seventy-five years of Palestinian attempts to eliminate the Jewish state. The U.S. education system must begin to counter this in both K-12 and secondary schools.

In addition, policymakers must make a case that Israel is a partner and not a client state—or worse, a malign influence. The plan that President Donald Trump put in motion during the first overseas trip of his second term is still a valid framework for strengthening the vital partnership with Israel. The Gulf States have grown closer to both the United States and Israel through the Iran war, and that was a mainstay of Trump’s Middle East grand strategy.

Security arrangements are important, but the economic and technology partnerships are even more likely to yield a lasting relationship. The more that this can include the Gulf States, the less that critics can portray Israel as the cause of instability. There are many discussions underway about how to push the region forward into a more peaceful and secure situation. Highlighting these, and how they involve multiple regional powers, will normalize the widely divergent opinions about Israel.

It actually can be helpful that extremists have shown their true colors by spewing wildly inaccurate and false accusations about Israel and its alliance with the United States. These falsehoods marginalize those voices and reveal the true value of that partnership, but Washington must make this case much more broadly to counter the negative impressions that have festered. If that can be done, a prosperous new era in the Middle East that includes Israel, the Gulf States, and perhaps even Iran seems an actual possibility.