{"id":229891,"date":"2026-11-05T23:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/the-midterms-were-a-thumping-rebuke-of-the-us-israel-relationship-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T23:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T23:09:08","slug":"the-midterms-were-a-thumping-rebuke-of-the-us-israel-relationship-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/the-midterms-were-a-thumping-rebuke-of-the-us-israel-relationship-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even Trump seems to recognize that the relationship has become a political liability, and may never be the same
Send us your questions about the midterm results<\/a>
Track live results from all 50 states<\/a>
On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump<\/a> seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship had become a political liability.
Trump\u2019s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel<\/a> at the end of the year because, as he put it, \u201cthey don\u2019t need it\u201d, was condemned across the board \u2013 with pro-Palestinian<\/a> advocates dismissing it as \u201cdesperate\u201d and pro-Israel<\/a> ones as \u201cunserious\u201d.
Trump\u2019s suggestion that he would replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales signaled little would change in practice \u2013 the funding would continue and it would be harder to track. But it was still a notable recognition by the president of just how much support for Israel has tanked<\/a> against the backdrop of the latest war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, been widely described as a genocide, and reshaped US politics in ways unthinkable just three years ago.
Indeed, <\/strong>come January, the US House will include an army doctor who went on a medical mission in Gaza<\/a>, a lawyer who was fired<\/a> by her firm over a blogpost criticizing Israel\u2019s war, a Jewish lawmaker<\/a> who was recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, and a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestine student encampment<\/a> and scored one of the primary season\u2019s most stunning upsets under the banner \u201cbabies, not bombs\u201d.
Pro-Palestinian candidates \u2013 including Palestinian-American ones \u2013 have won downballot races. And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed<\/a> became the first Muslim to be elected to the US Senate, following a campaign that saw more than $40m spent by Aipac in an effort to defeat him, last-minute drama<\/a>, and unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry.
\u201cThe old bipartisan consensus on Israel<\/a> is over,\u201d Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said. Without that consensus in place, the next Congress could push a number of measures, from an arms embargo on Israel to sanctions against violent settlers and officials \u2013 though Trump would retain veto power to block them.
The vote was also a rejection of Trump\u2019s war in Iran \u2013 something even JD Vance said on Wednesday was \u201cobvious to almost everyone<\/a>\u201d. Foreign policy issues rarely determine US elections \u2013 that is, until those issues have a direct effect on Americans\u2019 lives at home.
\u201cAmericans were reminded of the failures of the Iran war with every visit to the gas station and grocery store,\u201d said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine\/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC. \u201cIsrael is a central piece of that story.\u201d
Across the country, and up and down the ballot, unabashedly pro-Palestinian candidates defeated pro-Israel ones despite groups like Aipac pouring tens of millions of dollars into a failed attempt to reverse Israel\u2019s collapsing standing among US voters. Last month, Aipac acknowledged its open support was hurting pro-Israel candidates more than it helped them, and announced it would stop making direct endorsements and contributions \u2013 a remarkable admission<\/a> even if one with little practical consequence.
The victories of El-Sayed and several other candidates whom the right sought to cast as antisemitic over their support for Palestinians also marked a significant rejection of the narrative that pro-Israel voices and the Trump administration<\/a> have relentlessly advanced over the last three years \u2013 that criticism of Israel is, by default, antisemitic.
\u201cThey try to call you hateful if you believe that Palestinian kids should get to grow up in the land of their forefathers without being murdered by our tax dollars,\u201d El-Sayed, who has continued to speak plainly about his support for Palestinians despite coming under enormous pressure over it, said during his acceptance speech. \u201cIf you believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self determination, that\u2019s not hate, it\u2019s love.\u201d
In Michigan, El-Sayed won a majority of Jewish voters<\/a>, according to exit polls. Despite warnings that Jews would leave the Democratic party en masse over its shifts on Israel, J Street said<\/a> its polling found that 72% of Jews voted for Democrats on Tuesday, even though the Republican party increased its share<\/a> of the Jewish vote since 2024.
This does not mean that the Democratic party is unified on Israel and Palestine and or in opposition to foreign wars.
For decades, the party has \u201cexcluded or marginalized anyone whose progressive values extend to support for Palestine\u201d, Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said. \u201cAmerican voters, organizers, and a cohort of enormously talented candidates came together and kicked the door down.\u201d
Matt Duss, executive vice-president of the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy aide to Senator Bernie Sanders, said that the Democrats<\/a> now must seize the opportunity to become the party opposed to war.
\u201cTrump ran and won as an anti-war candidate in 2024, because unfortunately Democrats left that lane wide open for him,\u201d he said. \u201cThe question is: will Democrats finally get it? Will they finally realize that Americans are tired of war and want a new foreign policy?\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even Trump seems to recognize that the relationship has become a political liability, and may never be the sameSend us your questions about the midterm resultsTrack live results from all 50 statesOn the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}