Is US patience with Israel running out?

Israel’s military campaigns in the Middle East depend on support from the United States. But how long will that support last, now that more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, according to a reliable opinion poll?

Hamas reached an agreement with the United States and The Board of Peace on disarmament linked to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza on Friday 31 July.

On the face of it, this was very good news, pointing to a possible way out of the profound tragedy in Gaza. Equally striking was the fact that President Donald Trump initially appeared to be more in agreement with Hamas than with Israel.

Israel’s response was an unequivocal rejection. This came both in the form of clear statements from the country’s political leadership and intensified bombing of the devastated strip of land, despite a ceasefire technically being in place.

This points to a recurring theme in the Middle East.

In both Lebanon and Syria, Israel has continued its military campaigns after President Trump declared that they had to end so that he could secure an agreement.

On the Lebanon front, Trump made no attempt to hide his frustration with Prime Minister Netanyahu: ‘You’re fucking crazy. [...] I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.’ Not so subtle.

A changing relationship

There is, however, a wide gap between rhetorical pressure and actual pressure.

As long as the United States continues to supply Israel with weapons and protect it at the UN, Israel has limited incentive to halt its military campaigns.

The rhetoric is nevertheless an indication of a changing relationship.

In terms of practical policy, US support for Israel has never been stronger, while Palestinians are being treated worse than ever. At the same time, however, a remarkable shift is taking place in American public opinion.

One of the big questions hanging over international politics is when this public opinion will begin to translate into US foreign policy – and what that would mean for the Middle East.

Americans are turning their backs on Israel

In February 2026, Gallup published a remarkable opinion poll, with comparable results going back to 2001. Americans were asked a series of questions about their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Among the population as a whole, 36 per cent sympathized more with Israelis, while 41 per cent sympathized more with Palestinians. In other words, there are now more Americans who sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israelis. Ten years earlier, the corresponding figures had been 62/15.

When Gallup looked more closely at how different groups of Americans had responded, there were only two groups that sympathized more with Israelis than with Palestinians.

Those two groups were people who identified as Republicans and those aged 55 and over. But there had been a shift even within these two groups. Among the over-55s, the figures changed from 72/11 in 2016 to 49/31 in 2026. Among Republicans, they changed from 79/7 to 70/13 over the same period.

Cracks in the MAGA movement

Even though Donald Trump and the Republicans have taken the United States firmly in a pro-Israel direction, and even though a large majority of Republicans still sympathize more with Israelis, this is one of the issues on which cracks are appearing in the MAGA coalition. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among the first in her party to call the war in Gaza a genocide.

Before this, Taylor Greene had become notorious, among other things, for talking about space lasers controlled by Jewish financial interests. Something similar can be seen with the prominent commentator Tucker Carlson.

This illustrates that some of the growing criticism of Israel is directly linked to antisemitic attitudes. But dismissing the change in American sentiments towards Israel by pointing to conspiracy-minded politicians such as Taylor Greene is far too simplistic.

Americans did not vote for Trump because of his foreign policy, but very many of those who did take foreign policy into account wanted an end to ‘forever wars’.

The term is generally associated with US military involvement in the Middle East. Why should we sacrifice American lives and spend vast sums of money on wars overseas when the needs at home are so great?

America’s war with Iran – lurching between escalation, negotiations and ceasefires – was launched together with Israel and began after strong urging from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The war is creating instability in the Middle East, undermining US credibility internationally and driving up prices in the United States.

The opposite of what Trump campaigned on.

Gaza was a watershed for the Democrats

It is impossible to predict exactly where America’s threshold lies when it comes to what Israel can do. But for the Democrats, there are strong indications that the limit has now been reached. Gaza was the breaking point.

What this will mean depends both on whether a Democrat wins the 2028 election and, if so, what kind of Democrat that is.

The Gallup report cited above showed that the proportion of Democrats who sympathized more with Israelis had fallen from 53 per cent in 2016 to 17 per cent in 2026. The proportion who sympathized more with Palestinians had risen from 23 per cent in 2016 to 65 per cent in 2026. A similar shift in sympathies could be seen among 18–34-year-olds in the population as a whole. These are enormous changes in just a decade.

It has been argued that Kamala Harris lost many voters because of her support for Israel and her failure to listen to the party’s pro-Palestinian activists. It is also clear that her association with Biden’s Gaza policy weakened her ability to mobilize the party’s activist grassroots.

Since then, Israel’s conduct of the war, its occupation policies and US arms supplies have become central issues in the debate within the Democratic Party. This is obviously true of the party’s most left-wing politicians. More strikingly, party veterans such as Nancy Pelosi have voted against arms supplies to Israel.

This is far from a one-way development. Israel has a great many supporters in the United States, and lobby groups such as AIPAC are mobilizing at full throttle.

Candidates can therefore lose voters by criticizing Israel, but they can also lose voters by failing to do so. The fact that the debate is now so heated and so prominent represents a significant shift.

Foreign-policy inertia

American politics is notoriously dominated by old men. Whether Biden or Trump, this is a generation that grew up with virtually unconditional support for Israel. It is therefore hardly surprising that politicians of this generation should find themselves out of step with their own population.

The ties between the two countries also run deep. Whether in terms of political sympathies, the technology and arms industries, or strategic alliances, the relationship is extensive, institutionalized and has deep historical roots. It will not change overnight.

But what happens if the combination of changing public opinion and the foreign-policy costs of the close ties between the two countries becomes too great for the United States? This is a question Israeli politicians should take extremely seriously.

Apparently, they do not.

Instead, Israel is acting as though this is its best opportunity to expand its territory, displace Palestinians and clear its border areas. So far, it has been allowed to continue doing so. But what if the protective hand of the United States were to disappear?

• Jørgen Jensehaugen is a Research Professor at PRIO
• This text was first published in Norwegian by Panorama nyheter