Much of the world may be focused on the deadlocked results in Israel’s general election right now, but the most consequential balloting for the Jewish nation will actually take place thousands of miles away this week.
There, in Florida and Texas, Los Angeles, New York, and Michigan, American voters will decide not merely the future of their own nation but the future of Washington’s once-unbreakable bond with Jerusalem. And depending on the outcome of this week’s races, that bond could break irrevocably.
The choice between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot was never going to change much for American voters, much like it hasn’t changed much for their Israeli counterparts who, despite the catastrophic failings of October 7, 2023, have apparently opted for the devil they know.
The importance of the US midterms and Israel
While keeping Netanyahu around may ultimately be of questionable service to the Israeli body politic, it actually serves America quite well; most importantly, as both the Left and Right wage their final battle in those crucial midterms.
Literally endorsed by US President Donald Trump himself, Netanyahu’s likely survival provides the White House with the hawkish anchor they need to wage the war with Iran, apparently set to reignite soon after Tuesday’s votes are counted.
Despite the war’s near $50 billion price tag, and a further $2 to $3 billion in expenditures each month, “We may do another little Epic Fury,” Trump said at a rally in Florida last week, in reference to the war’s massive joint US-Israeli opening salvo in February.
While there is no indication Israel will join in any potential post-midterm hostilities, the nation remains an essential partner for intelligence and logistics. And keeping Netanyahu in place is just one less operational hassle for a White House (and president) already overwhelmed by a conflict that has long passed its expiration date, with no real end in sight.
Add in the spectacular defeat of Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil last weekend, and Trump can ill-afford to lose another of his strong-man buddies, and Netanyahu has proven to be the strongest of all.
Meanwhile, while they may have spent the past three years vilifying Netanyahu, America’s progressive flank has even more to gain than Republicans from another Likud-led government.
Despite the record turnout of opposition votes and the unprecedented wins by Israeli-Arab voters, with Netanyahu at the helm, Israel remains the “apartheid”-loving, genocide-waging ethnostate the Left has been chanting about for years. Chants are growing far more menacing and darker.
“One of the problems we are having in America is that there are a lot of people still under the ‘if but for Netanyahu’ fantasy,” explained celebrated African-American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates during an appearance at the Palestine Festival of Literature in London last month, where he made very clear it’s an end to Israel, not merely Bibi, that remains the ultimate anti-Zionist fantasy.
Never mind that Black unemployment is now nearly twice that of Whites, or African-American violent crime rates are six times higher than Caucasians, or even a recent Fox News poll noting Blacks are the American ethnic group most likely to believe US foreign policy isn’t supportive enough of Israel; it’s all-Netanyahu all the time for Israel-obsessed “intellectuals” like Coates.
THAT OBSESSION, Israel and Zionism’s status as the ultimate political and cultural “omnicause,” continues to inflame the most consequential midterm races. In Los Angeles, for instance, DSA-aligned mayoral candidate Nithya Raman has finally succumbed to DSA demands that she embrace the BDS movement lest she lose the party’s endorsement.
In Michigan, an ad late last month in support of anti-Zionist Senator candidate Abdul El-Sayed blamed US aid to Israel for America’s high food costs. The commercial was so overreaching and extreme that El-Sayed released a statement saying that it was “not affiliated with his campaign.”
Most disheartening are campaigns by Michigan Jews intended to convince other Michigan Jews to vote for El-Sayed.
In this perverse reversal of logic, well-known Jews such as actor Mandy Patinkin are exhorting Michigan’s Jews to vote for El-Sayed not only as an example of Jewish values, but because “Jewish safety depends on a real multiracial democracy, and Abdul is the one fighting to protect it,” said Patinkin in late last week.
In a second ad a few days later bemoaning attacks on El-Sayed’s Muslim faith, Patinkin suggested that fighting Islamophobia is the best way to combat antisemitism. “Who is going to stand up for the rights of all of us? Abdul,” he added.
Netanyahu fits neatly into this self-sabotaging worldview, serving as the ultimate bogeyman for Jews like Patinkin, ever eager to perform their anti-Zionist ablutions, along with the Gentiles who affirm them. Of course, Eisenkot, a career military man, is nearly as hawkish as Bibi. But as an enigma and newcomer, he would prove far less of a rallying-cry for America’s progressive masses.
Should candidates like Raman, El-Sayed, Troy Jackson in Maine, and Angie Nixon in Florida triumph on Tuesday, the consequences will be seismic no matter who ultimately leads the nation. In July, a vote by more than 100 Democrats to halt aid to Israel was defeated this past summer owing to Republican Congressional control.
But should that control switch from Red to Blue, similar measures are almost certain to be forthcoming – and win.
Even more worrisome for Israel, declarations of “genocide” and other anti-Israel litmus tests are likely to anchor the Democratic platform in the 2028 presidential race.
Already, Kamala Harris is suggesting her 2024 defeat was tied to Joe Biden’s refusal to rein in Netanyahu in Gaza. She and other potential Democratic challengers are unlikely to make the mistake of under-criticizing Israel again.
This type of fundamental policy shift has no precedent, even for a politician as seasoned and wily as Netanyahu. Which means even if he wins the battle to lead Israel, Israel’s war with Washington may not have even begun.
The writer is a former New York Post opinion editor and columnist, an adjunct fellow at The Tel Aviv Institute, and founder of The Octagon Project.
