OPINION: Israelis know they’re losing America

A new survey from the Israel Democracy Institute’s Viterbi Center, published this week, found that 72% of Israelis (Jews and Arabs alike) consider the recent decline in positive attitudes toward Israel among Americans to be concerning for the country’s future.

The results reflect a reality that Israelis are increasingly coming to terms with: that winning the physical battles doesn’t necessarily mean winning the moral argument or convincing the court of public online opinion.

The numbers from the American side are stark. Six in ten Americans now hold a very or somewhat unfavourable view of Israel, up nearly 20 percentage points since 2022. For the first time, Americans sympathise more with Palestinians than Israelis: 46% to 28% among those who express a preference. But the more structurally significant shift is where Americans are forming their views amid a fragmented and largely unregulated online media space.

A divide over Israel mires the American right. Tucker Carlson, who CNN describes as being “savaged” by Trump for his criticism of the Iran war, has become one of the most prominent anti-Israel voices in right-wing media.
Joe Rogan is technically a liberal, but he reaches nearly 40 million followers across his platforms and has hosted guests including Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper and Ian Carroll, an influencer who regularly spreads anti-Israel conspiracy theories.

And who could ignore Candace Owens, who has built a significant portion of her post-Daily Wire brand around unhinged themes and rants.
Rogan has called the Iran war “insane,” “f***ing terrifying,” and said it’s “why a lot of people feel betrayed” by Trump. And New Media figures aren’t fringe anymore. They are, for a generation of Americans, the primary political media diet.

Israel’s own Ministry for Diaspora Affairs has published a report warning of a dangerous discourse attempting to present Israel as having manipulatively dragged the US into war, a narrative it describes as regularly devolving from political criticism into conspiratorial rhetoric “with a sharp antisemitic aroma,” said Amichai Chikli, minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism. That Israel felt compelled to publish such a report is itself telling.

Perhaps a personal note is appropriate here. Many know I spent half a decade covering Israel’s startup ecosystem for CTech – my timeline crossed pandemics, domestic social struggles, and then wars and international backlash. I saw it all and was proud to report on the success, resiliency, and strength of the country, its tech sector, and the people who contributed to its success.

But October 7, and the world’s reaction to it, popped the technological bubble I had been operating in. I was exposed to some of this anti-Israel and pro-Hamas sentiment that made me confront harder questions about what the country was becoming politically, and what the cost of its wars would eventually be in the currency that matters most to a small country: the goodwill of journalists, academics, and its allies.

The IDI data shows Israelis have already internalised one consequence of that eroding goodwill. A majority (51%) now say the US administration has greater influence over Israel’s defense decisions than the Israeli government itself. Ironically, factions of the American hard Left and Right think Israel has too much influence over the US’s defense decisions!

Finally, the survey finds that optimism about Israel’s national security fell from 47% in March to 39% in April, marking the steepest single-month drop in the index’s recent run. The Israeli Left is most alarmed by the American shift, at 90%, but majorities on the center and right agree.
Those who live here know that there are few issues in Israeli public life where 72% of the country shares a view on anything, let alone in politics. That this is one of them says something about how clearly people here understand the stakes.

Israel has shown itself to survive almost any crisis domestically: Whether military challenge, technological innovation, or financial resiliency. But looking outward, it’s becoming harder to overlook the fact that there is a new generation of Americans whose most-listened-to voices told them, for years, that Israel was their problem.

And if trends aren’t reversed, it could signal the next chapter in the long list of existential threats that Israel must defeat.

James Spiro is a tech journalist and founder of The Spiro Circle, a publication and podcast that explores culture, identity and technology. He spent five years reporting on Startup Nation at CTech, Israel’s largest English-language tech news site