On Oct. 22, just 12 days before the US midterm elections, a pro-Israel lobby group in America announced that it was stopping endorsing candidates or making direct contributions to their campaigns. But everything was not quite what it seemed. In a letter to its members, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said that it would continue to fund pro-Israel candidates by mobilizing “contributions from individual Americans.” AIPAC’s decision to, in effect, take its name off the funding was a tacit recognition that its brand and its mission — to “persuade the US government to enact specific policies that create a strong, enduring and mutually beneficial relationship with our ally Israel” — had become politically toxic. In terms of America’s future relationship with Israel, the story of the midterms is a tale of two lobby groups. At the opposite end of the pro-Israel spectrum from AIPAC is J Street, which on Wednesday celebrated the midterm results as “a resounding victory.” In its largest midterm political effort to date, J Street spent $13 million championing more than 200 candidates for the House of Representatives and Senate and targeting five AIPAC-backed candidates. More than 90 percent of J Street’s candidates won their races, including the five who ran against AIPAC-backed opponents. “Voters delivered a clear rejection of the Trump administration’s reckless policies at home and abroad, including its disastrous war of choice in Iran,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said on Wednesday. “They made clear they want a different direction for America and a different approach in the Middle East — one that has too often failed Americans, Israelis and Palestinians alike.” AIPAC’s mission is to maintain and strengthen unconditional US support for Israel. J Street, on the other hand, supports Israel’s security but argues that American policy should also exert pressure on Israeli governments to pursue a negotiated peace with the Palestinians. J Street believes in, and backs politicians who also believe in, seeking “a comprehensive regional agreement that ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Furthermore, it opposes the building of illegal settlements in the West Bank and believes that “the Palestinian people, like the Jewish people, have the right to a democratic national home of their own, living alongside Israel in peace, freedom and security … they deserve full civil rights and an end to the systemic injustice of occupation.” In the wake of the resounding Democratic victory in the midterms, voter unease over America’s traditional support for Israel has registered in the highest echelons of the Republican Party. In the run-up to Israel’s own elections, US President Donald Trump gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his “complete and total endorsement,” praising him in a post on Truth Social on Oct. 18 as “a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combating the Islamic Republic of Iran.” But when a journalist the following day invited US Vice President JD Vance to follow suit, he pointedly declined. “I endorse American candidates,” he said, “and that’s where I’m focused on the midterms,” adding: “I’m not getting involved in Israeli elections.” It was a significant snub for Netanyahu from a man widely seen as a likely successor to Trump. But on Wednesday, in the wake of the Republican rout, Vance left little doubt about where he stood on American support for Israel. In a lengthy social media post, he said that the day before the elections a pollster — “one of the smartest people I know in politics” — had warned him that many Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote Democratic — which they did. Four things, Vance was told and accepted, would bring them back into the “Make America Great Again” fold: end the war, focus on the cost of living, put America first — and change America’s relationship with Israel. That last demand might have had some impact on Trump’s curiously timed but ultimately belated announcement on election day that he would cut off military aid to Israel by the end of this year. “We won’t be paying anymore to Israel,” the president told Fox News on Tuesday. “We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year, we won’t be paying Israel.” According to Trump, it was a transparently political decision that recognized the increasing unpopularity among voters of America’s support for Israel. “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they (Israelis) don’t need it? It’s a bad talking point … It’s almost too easy a target.” He was referring to Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee for Michigan, won the seat in Tuesday’s vote. But rather like AIPAC’s withdrawal from direct campaign funding, the announcement was not all it seemed. Under a 10-year agreement that began in 2018, America gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid every year. The deal was due to expire anyway in 2028 and talks have been underway about phasing it out earlier. But for Trump to bring the issue front and center on the day Americans went to the polls is another sign that US support for Israel is widely perceived as a vote-losing issue and one that has been bubbling under the surface of US politics for some time. A report published for members of Congress in May 2025 by the Congressional Research Service revealed that since the creation of Israel in 1948 the US had provided $174 billion in military aid. But the report also noted that over the past two decades, including during Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hamas, that American public attitudes toward Israel as expressed in opinion polls “have shifted somewhat when compared to previous eras.” “Though lawmakers continue to vote in favor of US assistance to Israel, there have been calls from some political and ideological groups to reevaluate the long-standing US-Israeli assistance relationship.” Further evidence that Americans are growing tired of supporting Israel emerged in an opinion poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Oct. 5. “Once an enduring area of bipartisan consensus, American support for Israel has shifted dramatically” since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, it said. “Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza and its participation in the unpopular joint US-Israeli war against Iran has cooled American sentiment toward Israel to its lowest point … since 1978.” For the first time, polling revealed that more than half of Americans (56 percent) thought that US military aid to Israel should either be decreased or stopped altogether. The same proportion said that the US should not take a side in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, although 26 percent of Democrats favored actively siding with the Palestinians. This was the sentiment that veteran US senator for Vermont Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, brought to an interview with the BBC on Wednesday. “No more military aid to the extremist government in Israel, that is what the American people want and that’s what we’ve got to do,” he said. Challenged on his description of Israel’s government as extremist, he added: “I think most people in America and around the world do believe they are extremist and what they have done to the Palestinian people, in my view, is genocidal.” A cooling in America’s relationship with Israel bodes ill for Netanyahu and as a consequence could influence the shape and policies of Israel’s next government. Following the Israeli election on Oct. 27, which left no party or bloc with a clear route to forming the next government, Netanyahu has been fighting for his political life. He likes to present himself as Israel’s “Trump whisperer,” vital to the continuation of US support for his country. The loss of that support will not make it any easier for him to form alliances. The changing mood among American voters and in Washington is also likely to give Netanyahu pause for thought when it comes to considering any unilateral attacks against Iran. And despite Trump’s repeated hints before the midterms that the US might resume attacks on Iran after the elections, White House advisers will doubtless be weighing the wisdom of any renewed conflict in the Gulf against the clear wishes of the American electorate. Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu’s competitors, all vying for a role in Israel’s next government, have seized upon the midterm results as evidence that he is no longer fit to lead the country. Yair Golan, leader of the center-left Democrats party, said that the results revealed “just how toxic Netanyahu has become among both Democrats and Republicans.” Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, said that Israel “cannot afford to let him remain prime minister. It endangers our security (and) will ruin our standing in the world.” Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger, pledged to “renew and deepen” the relationship with America and “work with our allies to advance a Middle East defined not simply by the absence of conflict but by the presence of opportunity and cooperation.” To date Netanyahu has made no public comment about the midterms, but on Wednesday Israel’s President Isaac Herzog was quick to apply a diplomatic Band-Aid. “I just heard the remarks by Vice President Vance,” he said. “These are sentiments that are in the air in our great friend and ally.” He had, he added, “respect for President Trump, for Vice President Vance and for the Democratic Party … Israel has always made every effort to be bipartisan.” Such is the political mood in America now that no overtly pro-Israel politician, whether Republican or Democrat, finds themselves in a comfortable position. On Wednesday actor Mark Ruffalo, a high-profile advocate for Palestinian rights, backed a Change.org petition calling on members of the newly elected House of Representatives not to nominate the staunchly pro-Israel Democrat Hakeem Jeffries for the role of Speaker of the House. America’s support for Israel dates back to its founding, when the US became the first country to recognize the new state. Its backing, influenced by America’s large and influential Jewish population, is rooted in a combination of history, strategic interests and religious conviction. For many evangelical Christians in America, the existence of the state of Israel is seen as a necessary precondition for the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy — the second coming of Jesus Christ. There are several evangelical Christians in Trump’s administration, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. In a 2024 interview, Huckabee said he believed that “those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side.” It is a position that many in American politics will no longer be viewing as a blessing.