‘Whether people like Israel or not’: What six words in a Trump post reveal - analysis

Six innocuous words, easy to glide past, but very revealing of Israel’s current standing in the US.

And that caveat matters. It acknowledges, first, that there are many who do not like Israel; it suggests, second, that Israel has shifted from a broadly accepted ally to a debated one; and it hints, finally, that Israel’s reputation has eroded to the point where even a strong supporter feels the need to brace for pushback before offering praise.

What follows in the tweet reinforces that shift. Trump does not frame Israel in the traditional language of shared values and common ideals. Rather, he praises it in terms of performance: “Courageous, Bold… knows how to WIN.”

The emphasis is not on what Israel represents or how that aligns with American values, but rather on what it delivers. This is a subtle yet significant shift – a more transactional framing: Israel moving from a natural partner to a useful one. This framing reflects a broader and troubling reality: Israel has become a dividing line within American politics, part of the culture-war terrain rather than, as it once was, a rare point of consensus.

The polling bears this out. Negative views of Israel among the general American public – and most sharply among Democrats – have been rising. None of that is new. But to see it stated so bluntly, in six offhand words written by a very supportive president, is nonetheless jarring. It underscores how far the discourse has shifted.

There are, of course, many reasons for that shift, including Israel’s hard-right government and changing demographics in the US. Another reason is the kind of narrative now entering the political mainstream, as reflected in comments by former vice president Kamala Harris at a charitable event in Detroit on Saturday.

Trump, she argued, entered a war with Iran not out of strategic necessity but because he was pulled into it by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – “let us be clear about that” – thereby risking American lives in a conflict the public does not want.

The argument does two things at once. It diminishes Trump by portraying him as weak, as someone drawn into war at great cost because he could not withstand outside pressure. And it casts Netanyahu as the driver of that decision, echoing, whether consciously or not, an old and corrosive trope about Jewish power and manipulation.

The old canard held that Jews controlled the world; its modern variant casts the Jewish state as manipulating the United States.

If one is searching for explanations for Israel’s deteriorating standing, narratives like this are part of the answer. And they are gaining traction.

How much traction? Consider the recent vote in Congress on legislation introduced by Bernie Sanders to block the sale of certain military equipment to Israel – bombs in one case and bulldozers used to level homes and clear areas infiltrated by terrorists in another. Both measures failed. But the margins tell a story.

Forty out of 47 Democratic senators supported blocking the sale of the bulldozers. Thirty-six backed blocking the bombs.

That is not a marginal shift; it is a substantial one. This is the third time in as many years that Sanders has brought a resolution to block arms sales to Israel. In 2024, 19 Democrats voted for one such resolution; in 2025, that number rose to 24.

Equally striking – particularly from a Jewish perspective – is that seven of the Senate’s 10 Jewish members voted in favor of these measures, meaning they supported steps detrimental to Israel’s security. Among them were Sanders, Adam Schiff, Brian Schatz, Ron Wyden, Elissa Slotkin, Jon Ossoff, and Michael Bennet, while Chuck Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, and Jacky Rosen voted against the resolutions.

What this suggests is that Israel has become politically costly. Senators are not only weighing policy and moral considerations; they are also making electoral calculations – some would call it pandering to perceived public opinion. Many Democrats now apparently feel the path to political success no longer runs through supporting Israel, but increasingly through distancing themselves from it.

They may call it “distancing themselves from Netanyahu,” but those bulldozers and bombs are not for Netanyahu; they are intended to defend everyday Israelis from terrorists who seek to kill them.

There is another notable pattern. Jewish elected officials and candidates today often feel compelled to voice criticism of Israel. By contrast, Palestinian or Muslim officials rarely adopt a similarly critical posture toward the Palestinian cause or express any sympathy for Israel.

All of this unfolds against a striking backdrop. Never have Israel and the US militaries been so closely coordinated. Never have their intelligence agencies worked in such concert. And rarely have two administrations – Israeli and American – been so aligned.

Yet at the same time, Israel’s standing among the American public has rarely been lower.

That paradox – deep strategic alignment alongside growing political and public unease – defines the current moment.

It is also no coincidence that Trump’s own favorability ratings are low. The two dynamics are increasingly intertwined.

That may be the most troubling part of all: that Israel’s standing in the US is no longer anchored in a broad national consensus but has drifted into the same partisan currents that are so badly dividing America. And the irony: that this is happening not when the two governments and militaries are at odds, but precisely when they are as closely coordinated as ever and acting in tandem.