Israel Is Not Invincible
By Mairav Zonszein
Ms. Zonszein, a contributing Opinion writer, wrote from Tel Aviv.
After the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, when Israel was at its most vulnerable and became consumed with trying to reassert its power, its leaders set the bar for success impossibly high: invincibility.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talked about “total victory” and proceeded to unleash a campaign that destroyed Gaza. He then moved on to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, parts of Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The ability to continue fighting without constraints, both internal and external, became his administration’s goal in and of itself. And as war became the new default state of the nation, being pro-Israel has come to mean supporting — or at least not questioning — this security doctrine.
So it is understandable that Israelis have observed with shock and indignation the daylight that now shines between the Trump administration and the Israeli government. We have heard it everywhere, from President Trump’s leaked comments to Mr. Netanyahu in early June over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon — reportedly calling him “crazy” and saying that “everyone hates you now” — to Vice President JD Vance’s recent efforts to put Israel in its place.
Though Mr. Netanyahu has so far been careful not to show any dismay, his champions in the Israeli media have not held back. A far-right TV talk show host, Yinon Magal, called Mr. Vance “scum” and used a pejorative word for Jews to describe Mr. Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Another prominent Israeli personality and Netanyahu ally told The New Yorker he was “in shock” over the deal Mr. Trump made with Iran, and that Mr. Netanyahu was most likely shocked as well. A poll conducted in Israel after the U.S.-Iranian memorandum of understanding was signed shows a huge drop in Mr. Trump’s popularity among Israelis.
It’s premature to declare a full rupture in the U.S.-Israeli alliance or the relationship between the country’s two leaders. But they are, no doubt, at a crucial point. Israel’s outsize role in U.S. politics, its military and economic dominance in the region, buttressed and enabled by the United States for so long, and the success of the pro-Israel lobby are all now in flux. Israel put all its capital on the table in this last round of war on Iran and has come up short.
The crack in the relationship is most visible in Mr. Vance’s statements. He recently said to the Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat that he would tell Israel’s far-right ministers who have criticized the deal with Iran, “You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.” Then at a White House press briefing, the vice president continued on the same tack, saying, “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
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