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Israel - US Relations

The U.S. played a key role in supporting Israel during Operation Rising Lion through intelligence coordination, aerial refueling, and targeted strikes. The U.S. continues to provide significant military aid and supports Israel in regional security matters.

The Wall Street Journal reported 19 September 2025 that the Trump administration was seeking Congressional approval to supply Israel with nearly $6 billion in weapons as part of its military aid package. The two main deliveries will be 30 Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopters, valued at $3.8 billion, and 3,250 Oshkosh JLTV 4x4 wheeled armored vehicles, valued at $1.9 billion. Israel currently operates 46 Apache helicopters, including 26 AH-64As and 20 AH-64D-Is, and the delivery of the AH-64Es will replace the AH-64A fleet. Israel, which has not faced significant enemy air defenses during the fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, continues to view the attack helicopters as a valuable asset.

While former President Barack Obama had a notoriously frosty relationship with Netanyahu, Biden’s personal friendship with the Israeli prime minister stretched back more than three decades.

On 19 May 2020, Biden conducted an online fundraiser cohosted by the former Obama ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, and pro-Israel academic, Deborah Lipstadt. According to The New York Times, Biden told donors that “it was important to condemn criticism of Israel that drifts toward anti-Semitism, including on the political left”, even as he acknowledged that he had “gotten in trouble” for such calls in the past. “Criticism of Israel’s policy is not anti-Semitism,” Biden said. “But too often that criticism from the left morphs into anti-Semitism.”

Biden in effect has endorsed one of the most incendiary decisions of Trump’s presidency, moving the US embassy to the divided city of Jerusalem: endorsing Israeli sovereignty, including over East Jerusalem, which is supposedly reserved for a Palestinian capital. This Democratic presidential hopeful, who served as vice president in an administration that refused to do any of these things, has swallowed the poison pill and declared it delicious.

Biden’s white paper addressed to Jewish voters, The Jewish Community: a Record and a Plan of Friendship, Support, and Action promised to resume aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), he conditions it on the PA halting its welfare payments to the surviving family of shahids who died at the hands of Israel. As PA President Mahmoud Abbas has refused such demands in the past, this would mean that Biden would effectively continue Trump’s cutoff of all support to the Palestinians.

In earlier statements, Biden’s senior adviser Tony Blinken had explained that his candidate would not condition US aid to Israel on Israel’s adherence to international law. “He [Biden] would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions that it makes. Period. Full stop. He said it; he’s committed to it.” Blinken also emphasised that, if elected president, Biden will push back against the BDS movement as well as efforts to denounce Israel for its violations of international law at the United Nations. “Will we stand up forcefully against it and try to prevent it, defuse it and defeat it? Absolutely,” he said.

The administration of US President Joe Biden took a rare step to suspend arms shipments to Israel in May 2024, coinciding with the Israeli army carrying out attacks on the densely populated city of Rafah. No US administration had ever suspended or delayed arms shipments to Israel, despite allegations that the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, deliberately delayed “the supply of arms to srael... because he wanted to bleed Israel enough to facilitate the way for post-war diplomacy" in 1973, according to what retired US Navy Admiral Elmo Zumwalt said at that time. In an interview with Israeli Channel 12, the late American diplomat denied delaying arms shipments in the October 1973 War, or the so-called “Yom Kippur War” in Israel, stressing that the delay was due to “logistical problems...and Washington’s belief at the time.” “Israel was already winning,” according to a report published by the Times of Israel.

By late 2025 Israel’s standing with the American public had plunged to an unprecedented nadir. Traditional support among Democrats had collapsed, and support among Republicans had eroded. The decline was most pronounced among young people on both sides of the political map. Within the Jewish community as well, support has declined and criticism has mounted.

Most Americans involved in government have an opinion regarding “solutions” for the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Predominant is the “2-State Solution” that has become reflexive in circles associated with the political left and less so in circles associated with the political right. While Israelis associated with the political left may still support this approach,1 most Israelis do not.

Charlie Kirk, the pro-Israel conservative activist who was killed in a campus shooting in Utah in September 2025, had laid out his vision for countering what he called “anti-Israel sentiment” among Generation Z and winning the “information war” against Israel’s detractors. “My team and I have spent months analyzing trends and counter-narratives that could help you and your country push back against these troubling developments,” he wrote. “Anti-Israel sentiment has the potential to undermine America’s support for Israel.”

Nearly two years into the war in Gaza, American support for Israel had undergone a seismic reversal, with large shares of voters expressing starkly negative views about the Israeli government’s management of the conflict. A New York Times poll among registered voters in New York City indicated a clear majority expresses stronger sympathy for the Palestinians than for Israel. In the newspaper’s poll, 44% expressed greater support for the Palestinians compared to 26% who sided with Israel (12% supported both sides equally). Similar to other polls conducted among American audiences on this issue, support for Israel among young people is particularly low at only 13% among those aged 18–34, compared to 67% who identified with the Palestinians. Among Democrats, who constitute a majority in the city, 57% sympathized more with the Palestinians compared to 12% of Republicans, while 18% of Democrats identified with Israel compared to 57% of Republicans.

As the Gaza war dragged on, the Economist warned that US public and political backing for Israel is weakening, threatening the future of military aid and exposing Israel to growing isolation even as it seeks favor with President Trump. According to the magazine, Israel now finds itself more dependent on the United States than ever, yet its foundation of support is eroding in ways that could change the rules of the game. Polls show 53% of Americans now hold a negative opinion of Israel, with sympathy for Israel versus the Palestinians at a 25-year low. Forty-three percent of respondents believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The steepest drop wss among older Democrats, where negative views surged 23 percentage points in just three years. Support has also slipped among young Republicans—from 63% in 2022 to nearly an even split today. Even among young evangelicals, once a cornerstone of pro-Israel sentiment, support fell from 69% in 2018 to 34% in 2021, with pollsters noting the decline had continued. The Economist argues Netanyahu has tethered Israel to the Republican camp, alienating Democrats—yet even on the right, cracks are beginning to show.

A poll from The New York Times and Siena University relesed30 September 2025 found 29 September 2025 that 34 percent said they sided with Israel and 35 percent with Palestinians. Thirty-one percent said they were unsure or backed both equally. In the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, American voters broadly sympathized with Israelis over Palestinians, with 47 percent siding with Israel and 20 percent with Palestinians. A majority of American voters now oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, a stunning reversal in public opinion since the Oct. 7 attacks. About six out of 10 voters said that Israel should end its military campaign, even if the remaining Israeli hostages were not released or Hamas was not eliminated. And 40 percent of voters said Israel was intentionally killing civilians in Gaza, nearly double the number of voters who agreed with that statement in the 2023 poll.