The US midterm fallout has sent tremors through Israel’s political and security establishment, exposing anxieties about an alliance long treated as unshakeable. As results confirmed Democratic gains, Israeli leaders confronted a new reality: their closest partner may no longer offer unconditional support.
A Political Earthquake
Israeli commentator Ben Caspit, writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, described the outcome as a generational shift, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of having provoked a tsunami. Opposition figures quickly seized on the results, with one declaring that the elections had demonstrated how toxic Netanyahu has become for both Democrats and Republicans.
The prime minister has not publicly responded to the midterm results. His silence has itself become a subject of speculation in a country where his stock in Washington was once a central political asset.
Washington's Warning
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel’s leadership had grasped intellectually that the ground was shifting but had underestimated the speed and scale of the change. The official’s assessment underscored a broader sense that the relationship is entering a more transactional phase.
Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank featured prominently in Democratic campaigns, while the joint US-Israeli war on Iran became a lightning rod for voters. President Donald Trump himself blamed the Iran War for Republican losses, and Vice-President JD Vance listed the US relationship with Israel among four key reasons voters had abandoned the party.
Israeli analyst Yaakov Katz called Vance’s remarks potentially more consequential than the midterms themselves. He noted that the vice-president was now explicitly pointing to voter sentiment as a driver for changing America’s position on Israel, a signal that Israelis have not fully absorbed.
Aid Cut and Strategic Uncertainty
The midterm results arrived alongside another shock: Trump’s announcement during a Fox News interview that he would halt $3.8bn in annual military aid to Israel two years earlier than planned. President Isaac Herzog described the move as a bolt from the blue, and officials were still trying to determine whether Trump’s statement was serious two days later.
While US military aid constitutes less than 10% of Israel’s annual defence budget, Katz argued that the announcement raises a far larger question about future funding, arms sales and joint military projects. A Democrat-controlled Congress could slow or stall these arrangements even without the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.
Katz warned that Israel’s Air Force relies on American-made aircraft and spare parts, and that missile-defence systems have proven critical over the past three years. Any disruption to the pace of deliveries would alter Israel’s calculations about what it can withstand in a war.
The prime minister’s office eventually responded, saying the shift from aid to partnership reflected the strength and sophistication of the bilateral relationship. The statement did little to quiet concerns.
Diplomatic Reassurances and Political Realities
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee signalled no change in core American positions, including on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and dismissed sanctions imposed by other countries as irrational. Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said Trump would remain in the White House for two more years and that Israel could feel good about the US veto in the Security Council.
But Danon also acknowledged that criticism of Israel is mounting within both parties and that it will be harder for Israel to navigate that landscape.
The midterm fallout has landed at a delicate moment. Less than two weeks after Israel’s own parliamentary elections, neither the government nor the opposition holds a clear majority. The country’s president is now deciding whether Netanyahu or his centrist rival, Gadi Eisenkot, should have the first chance to form a coalition.
Eisenkot has pledged to renew and deepen the US partnership and to strengthen its bipartisan foundations. Yair Lapid, a member of the opposition bloc, called for a return to the principle that Israel does not choose sides in American politics and works with everyone, a rule he said was broken in 2015 when Netanyahu spoke to Congress against President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.
That speech is widely viewed as a turning point, after which Netanyahu anchored the alliance in Trump’s Republican Party even as Democratic alienation grew.
The US official suggested that before the midterms, Netanyahu could have improved relations by dismissing his two far-right ministers, but that the problem is now understood to be bigger than any single personnel change.
Some government supporters argue the new American tone increases the need for political stability and continuity, which they say Netanyahu provides. But whoever leads Israel’s next government, Washington may demand more than rhetoric.
In the noisy debate over what the midterms mean, the prime minister’s silence remains perhaps the most telling response of all.
