Rethinking America’s support for Israel

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he direct­ed his mil­i­tary to expand its con­trol of Gaza to 70 per­cent. Israel con­tin­ues air strikes into neigh­bor­ing Lebanon, osten­si­bly tar­get­ing Hezbollah enclaves while dis­plac­ing thou­sands of Lebanese and killing hun­dreds more.

And now Israel has instruct­ed Lebanese res­i­dents to vacate about twen­ty per­cent of Lebanon’s ter­ri­to­ry so that attacks can con­tin­ue against a sov­er­eign nation.

All this is occur­ring at the same time that a ten­u­ous and not-quite-effec­tive cease­fire exists between the United States and Iran, and as Pro-Israel polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and donors have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in some American elections.

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent mil­lions of dol­lars in the mid-term pri­maries to oust politi­cians who have crit­i­cized the asso­ci­a­tion between the United States and Israel that con­tin­ues to sup­port the Israeli incur­sions into oth­er coun­tries and regions. It is alleged that AIPAC spent fif­teen mil­lion dol­lars to unseat Kentucky Fourth District Representative Thomas Massie because he had been out­spo­ken about America’s mil­i­tary sup­port for Israel.

Of three Michigan Democratic can­di­dates for the U.S. Senate, two admit­ted tak­ing mon­ey from AIPAC. The one who stat­ed he received no funds from AIPAC is not­ed for speak­ing out against any addi­tion­al U.S. aid to Israel.

Even Pennsylvania’s Jewish Governor Shapiro has stat­ed that it’s dan­ger­ous for any polit­i­cal can­di­date to be anti-Israel.

AIPAC spreads its ten­ta­cles into both major par­ties. It seems to make no dif­fer­ence whether one is a Democrat or a Republican; sup­port for Israel is para­mount, as both Democrats and Republicans accept the PAC’s money.

In 1948, the United States was the first coun­try to rec­og­nize the state of Israel. Since that time, the bond between the two coun­tries has been unbreakable.

The United States stood silent while Israel slaugh­tered tens of thou­sands of Gazans fol­low­ing the October 2023 attack by Hamas. The United Nations was large­ly silent while this occurred. But in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest war­rant for Benjamin Netanyahu alleg­ing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu has vis­it­ed the White House per­haps more than any oth­er world leader; he made repeat­ed vis­its in the months before the 2026 U.S.-Iran conflict.

Considering that Israel was imme­di­ate­ly involved in the con­flict, and like­ly pro­vid­ed intel­li­gence pri­or to it, there is every like­li­hood that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu were already devel­op­ing plans for the ini­ti­a­tion of hostilities.

Israel will do every­thing in its pow­er to keep the United States embroiled in the Middle East. With the con­tin­ued sup­port of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and far too much of Congress, that par­tic­i­pa­tion is like­ly to con­tin­ue, much to the detri­ment of the United States’ prestige.

As soon as one becomes crit­i­cal of the actions of Israel, the specter of Anti-Semitism is raised. The two are eas­i­ly sep­a­ra­ble. Being against the poli­cies of Israel as a state has noth­ing to do with any judg­ment of the Jewish faith. Many Jews decry the actions of that country’s rul­ing admin­is­tra­tion, both here and in Israel itself.

It’s well past time for the United States to rec­og­nize that unbri­dled sup­port of Israel serves no great pur­pose for this coun­try or for its esteem around the world. It is entire­ly pos­si­ble for America to have a sane and log­i­cal pol­i­cy posi­tion vis-à-vis Israel with­out the bla­tant sup­port for all its mil­i­tary actions and incursions.

There was a time when this coun­try epit­o­mized the high­est ideals of fair­ness and respect for oth­er demo­c­ra­t­ic (and even non-demo­c­ra­t­ic) coun­tries, and we were respect­ed for it.

That respect has large­ly dis­ap­peared around the world as oth­er nations come to rec­og­nize the naked aggres­sion being exer­cised by the gov­ern­ment of Israel against its neigh­bors, against inter­na­tion­al law, and against human con­cerns, as hun­dreds of thou­sands of Gazans go hun­gry, with­out ade­quate med­ical care, with­out edu­ca­tion, and the Lebanese begin to face sim­i­lar difficulties.

In the name of human­i­ty, this nation must exer­cise some san­i­ty and declare that it will no longer sup­port the excur­sions of Israel and its mil­i­tant poli­cies against its neighbors.

We can con­tin­ue to oppose Hamas and Hezbollah and the atroc­i­ties they com­mit. But the effec­tive way to do that is not through the sup­port of Netanyahu and his ultra-right gov­ern­ment as they wage war against inno­cent civil­ians and exac­er­bate their hatred toward their oppressors.