Trump’s not wrong about Israel’s increasingly tattered international reputation. In just the last few days, Canada, the U.K. and Australia became the newest countries to recognize the state of Palestine. The U.S.-Israel relationship is also facing more scrutiny than ever before, with a rising number of lawmakers who once jostled to portray themselves as staunchly pro-Israel growing deeply critical. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest moves to launch a ground offensive in Gaza City, target Hamas leaders in Doha and deny evidence of widespread famine in the besieged strip are only further fueling the uproar.

Despite all that, the reality is that little is likely to change in Washington, at least for now. Congress is expected to keep greenlighting U.S. weapons for Israel and the Trump administration will almost certainly back even the country’s most audacious actions, or at least do nothing to pressure them to stop. (Trump has promised Arab and Muslim leaders he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, though it is unclear what pressure he will apply to do so.)

But that won’t last forever. Public polling makes clear that generational change is coming that is set to reshape U.S. policy toward Israel in fundamental ways. On both the left and the right, young Americans are growing more skeptical of offering unconditional U.S. support to Israel, particularly as the death toll in Gaza rises and the possibility of Palestinian statehood dims.

At the same time, younger Israelis are veering hard to the right, becoming more nationalist and religious and less sympathetic to the Palestinians, a shift that will create more tension in the U.S.-Israel relationship in the years to come. A collision looks unavoidable.

“We’re at an inflection point, where the traditional values and security argument that has underpinned the relationship has come under a lot of strain — so no matter what comes next we need to reexamine the assumptions that underpin the relationship,” said Elisa Ewers, who until recently was the top Democratic staffer on the Middle East on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “What worries me is that gap growing in the opposite direction inside of Israel, which makes it even more critical that we have a compelling logic to the relationship that’s not 40 years old.”


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