In a world of unintended consequences, few have done more to advance the Palestinian cause than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
His strident opposition to Palestinian statehood was well known. He resented earlier presidents pushing the issue, but he was confident US President Donald Trump didn’t share that goal. Instead, the billionaire president is more interested in courting the wealthy Gulf oil sheiks, who saw Israel as a source of trade and technology and especially protection from their shared enemy, Iran.
Many Arab rulers had grown frustrated by the Palestinian “veto,” the requirement that they avoid ties with Israel until the Palestinians’ maximalist demands have been met. Some leaders, however, had interests of their own, and Trump gave them the opening they needed with the Abraham Accords and its promises of new advanced weapons and other benefits. Netanyahu just had to agree not to annex the West Bank, despite promises to his coalition partners.
The prime minister had the Palestinians where he wanted them: off the American agenda.
Saudi Arabia, the prize catch, was on the cusp of signing up when the October 7 Hamas massacres in Israel halted it.
Global sympathy for Israel as the victim quickly began shrinking as the world watched the round-the-clock media coverage of Israel’s devastating response. And sympathy for the Palestinians (not Hamas) swelled.
The Saudis insisted they would not normalize relations until Israel and the Palestinians had made credible progress on negotiations toward statehood, something Netanyahu rejected.
Israel’s desire to destroy Hamas and its allies could be cheered by the Gulf state leaders, but not the pictures of mass destruction of homes, mosques, and hospitals, and reports of tens of thousands of women, children, and the elderly killed and wounded.
Former prime minister Golda Meir famously spoke of being able in time to “forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.”
There was no such empathy from Netanyahu or his government. Instead, the world heard threats to cut off water, food, and medicine for everyone in Gaza. Some top officials in Netanyahu’s extremist government celebrated the wholesale death and destruction, and called for pushing all the Arabs out of Gaza and reoccupying the Strip.
Netanyahu dismissed casualty numbers as Hamas propaganda, but they have since been independently accepted: more than 73,000 dead and over 173,000 wounded.
The focus on Gaza was exploited by ultra-nationalist factions in the government to distract from their campaign to drive the remaining Palestinians out of the West Bank by any means, including terrorism.
Netanyahu’s failure – or refusal – to stop anti-Palestinian violence by Jewish settler terrorists catered to the most extreme elements of his coalition. But it added to the international outrage and deepened the chasm between Israel and much of the American Jewish community. The prime minister disingenuously dismissed it as the work of some 150 “juvenile delinquents.”
Former IDF deputy chief of staff Matan Vilnai sent an open letter to Trump, warning that “members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos.” He said if unchecked, it could spark a new Intifada that would threaten regional security and American interests. His warning went unheeded by an administration with few humanitarian concerns.
Running against Israel
The humanitarian crisis that engulfed Gaza and Israeli government indifference ignited international outrage. Demonstrations spread across the United States, particularly on campuses. Longtime supporters of the Palestinians seized the opportunity to draw attention to their cause, and it began percolating up the political tree from the grassroots.
Soon there were calls, and then votes, to restrict or even halt military assistance to Israel, eventually supported by a majority of Senate Democrats. They failed, so far, but the message was clear. The Democratic Party, which for most of the past century had been the home of 70-plus percent of Jewish voters, was falling out of love with Bibi’s Israel.
Progressives, and even some moderates, have been running away from Israel this election year, returning or refusing campaign contributions from pro-Israel (read: pro-Netanyahu) groups. Israel and AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby and its well-heeled PACs, became pariahs for many.
A growing number of candidates, including Jews, are running campaigns harshly critical of Israel. Some are winning. Most notably so far are a pair of high-profile, charismatic Muslims: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan.
Political pros, journalists, and the pundit class attribute much of their successes, and those of like-minded candidates, to their anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian messages, and expect it to work for others this fall.
Polling shows a historic shift in support for Israel. The Palestinian cause, once barely noticeable, has become more popular than the Jewish state for many. Gallup reported a “stark decline in support for Israel” in a recent survey showing Palestinians with a 41%-36% favorability advantage. Pew Research Center found 69% of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Netanyahu.
The change is greatest among Democrats, progressives, and under-30 voters. It is also changing among the MAGA Right and the GOP’s America Firsters, who blame Israel for pushing Trump into war with Iran.
“We said no more foreign wars, and we meant it, and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise,” said former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a leading anti-Israel voice. “But he’s betrayed us all.”
The election season officially launches on Labor Day, and it will be an AI campaign on the Right and Left. Not “Artificial Intelligence” but “Affordability and Iran.”
The next Congress is likely to press for conditioning military aid to Israel, which gets over $3.8 billion annually. Many also see Netanyahu as responsible for convincing Trump to wage an unpopular war-of-choice against Iran. A Pew survey shows that by a 59-38 margin, most Americans say the war is unnecessary.
Trump may dismiss concerns over affordability as a “hoax,” but the candidates on this fall’s ballots can’t afford to. This war has driven up the cost of gas and groceries, and soon taxes, when Trump asks Congress for nearly half a trillion dollars in new spending to restock the Pentagon’s arsenals.
Meanwhile, Mamdani is planning mass anti-Netanyahu demonstrations when the prime minister comes to New York next month for the UN General Assembly. He even publicly toyed with the idea of arresting him on a World Court charge of war crimes. He knows he doesn’t have the authority, but he does have the stage and world attention to promote the Palestinian cause.
He will let everyone know that Netanyahu is blocking Trump’s Gaza peace and reconstruction efforts. Headlines across American media this week read: “Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza.”
Mamdani and El-Sayed, who question Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, thousands of students and demonstrators across the country, and many others drawn to the Palestinian cause now have large national audiences and the wind at their backs for their cause. They may feel proud of their new popularity, but it is doubtful they’d be where they are without the contributions of Bibi Netanyahu.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.