A Special Relationship at a Crossroads
“To be the enemy of the US is dangerous; to be its friend is lethal” (Henry Kissinger).
It’s often said in geopolitics that dynamism is the key to international relations, where every single minute, mindsets change, and partnerships are created and broken. Even the decades-long allies could find themselves at crossroads in difficult circumstances. And, to be honest, the US and Israel have now entered this phase, where the bromance between the two is now fading (Céspedes, 2026). Their relationship is no longer defined by unquestioned strategic alignment. Rather, a tit-for-tat scenario has begun, in particular, under the Trump 2.0 administration, which is much more transactional than its predecessor.
From Strategic Partnership to Strategic Friction
Every partnership or alliance in the international arena faces ups and downs, but that doesn’t mean the relationship no longer serves the interests. The US-Israel partnership could be its best manifestation. Since the Cold War, Israel has been the primary face of the US’s force projection in the Middle East. Every single intervention in the region by the US was meant to serve the Israeli purpose in one way or the other. There have been times of odds where minor disagreements erupted between the two.
An example of this would be the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 when Israel, along with Britain and France, devised a plan to attack Egypt following the Egyptian president’s decision to take control of the Suez Canal. The US president Eisenhower strongly opposed the invasion. He even threatened economic sanctions against Israel and forced Britain, France, and Israel to withdraw (Broadwater & College, 2018). Despite all this, Israel remained the top US arms importer throughout the course of history.
But most recently, since the inception of the Trump 2.0 administration in January 2025, the US and Israel are once again pursuing divergent policies. It seems like the US’s regional and global priorities are drifting apart, which has created fissures between the two partners. Both countries are no longer reading from the same strategic script. The alliance remains strong, but strategic convergence can no longer be taken for granted.
The Gaza War and the Limits of American Support
Since the war started after the October 7, 2023, attacks, the US provided weapons to Israel, but not without tensions. Therefore, President Biden’s administration stopped one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs in 2024 because of the extreme civilian deaths and delayed bulldozers used to knock down homes in Gaza, but still arms sales did not block (Lukiv et al., 2024).
However, when President Trump took office in 2025, he changed these limits. He elevated the bomb-shipment pause and finished a rule that needs Israel to promise that it would not target civilians with US weapons. Moreover, Trump’s administration has approved tens of billions in new sales, including a $6 billion helicopter and vehicle package in September 2025 and a $6.4 billion missile deal (Stone & Pamuk, 2025).
Therefore, in practice, US military assistance for Israel is not halted but is changed for the first time in decades, and Congress is debating whether to cut it. In July 2026, the House of Representatives voted on a proposal to finish the $3.3 billion in yearly military aid, and it failed because of the vote itself (Zengerle & Cowan, 2026). Groups like J Street demand that there should be laws that could allow Israel to send humanitarian aid into Gaza. It was not implemented properly by either Biden or Trump.
The Iran War and the Diverging Strategic Calculations
One of the most defining factors behind the ongoing discontent between the US and Israel is Iran. Since February 28, 2026, Iran has been attacked recurringly by the US. Initially, President Trump enlisted various objectives of the war, including curbing Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic power, the Iranian navy, and its regional proxies. However, neither of these has been accomplished yet. Instead, the US and Iran had signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (IMoU) under Pakistani and Qatari mediation (Agency, 2026). In spite of the fact that Israel is the main warring party against Iran, it was never taken on board by the US in signing a ceasefire agreement.
Moreover, the MoU included halting Israeli aggression in Lebanon, which the Trump administration accepted. But Israel categorically denied and refused to do so. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed President Trump for stopping the Jewish state from eliminating all of Hezbollah in Lebanon. He stated, “Having a partnership with the US has certain constraints” (Doornbos, 2026). Similarly, after signing a ceasefire agreement with Iran, President Trump backed out of his initial war goals and explicitly stated that if others can have ballistic missiles in the region, then why not Iran? However, Israel is still intact in its goals, contradictory to that of the US.
Israeli Lobby and American Discontent
Pro-Israel lobby organizations, such as AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), are considered to be among the most influential ones in the country. During the 2025-2026 electoral campaign cycle, AIPAC, along with its allies, allocated about $28 million for political campaigns; this is the highest expenditure among all those tracked by the Federal Election Commission (Lacy, 2024).
However, this spending has started to create a reaction. In February 2026, AIPAC spent over $2 million against a Democratic candidate in New Jersey and lost severely, drawing accusations that it demands total loyalty to Israel policy (Strauss, 2026). An increasing range of lawmakers, including centrist Democrat Seth Moulton, have publicly said they will no longer take AIPAC money. New watchdog groups such as Track AIPAC and new rival super PACs like American Priorities were created specifically to counter the lobby’s influence.
Although Israel and the US are strategic partners, according to the Gallup poll, before October 2023, 54% of Americans sympathized more with Israel and 31% with Palestinians (Vigers, 2026). This had been replaced by 41% of Americans who felt more sympathy towards the Palestinians and 36% who were in favor of the Israelis. The favorable attitudes of the Israelis decreased from 67% to 52%, as was revealed by Pew Research (Alper & Silver, 2026).
Republican support for Israel has also ended, but it remains much higher, and the Republicans still sympathize more with Israel, even though this is the lowest level of Republican support since 2004 (Staff, 2026). This is because of the generational division inside the Republican Party too. The younger people support “America First” policies and are skeptical of continued military assault in Gaza. On the other hand, the older evangelical Christian supports Israel.
Divergent Foreign Policies
Both the US and Israel, for the first time in history, are now pursuing contradictory foreign policy approaches. Thanks to the emergence of the multipolar moment where traditional threat perceptions have changed and multiple power centers have emerged. For the US, now the priority is to contain China in the Indo-Pacific. The Russian Federation no longer threatens the US like it did in the past. In the US National Security Strategy (2025), China has been entitled to be a ‘peer competitor (House, 2025).
Moreover, the US is now pursuing a policy of conservative internationalism where no more long foreign interventions are favored (Nau, 2008). Rather, tactical strikes are conducted, and negotiations are then resumed. Israel, however, is still pursuing its traditional realistic and disproportionate policies. For Israel, neither China nor Russia matters; it’s the regional hegemony that matters the most. Any regional power, be it Iran or Turkey, that challenges Israeli superiority will be hit hard by Israel.
Likewise, due to growing discontent amongst Gulf allies, President Trump has recently signed a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, which to many analysts appears as the US establishing a new nuclear nation against that of Iran’s if it fails in eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat in the region (Gordon & Kalin, 2026). Here once again Israel is opposing the US. On the same note, President Trump has given a green signal to Turkey for the export of F-35s, which were halted under the Biden administration due to Turkey’s growing relations with Moscow. As former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett has explicitly stated, “Turkey is the new Iran” (Colodro, 2026). Israel has opposed Trump’s decision regarding easing sanctions on Turkey.
In addition, Washington’s growing relations with Pakistan, in particular with Pakistani CDF Asim Munir, are also a matter of concern for Israel. Israeli PM Netanyahu has bluntly stated that Pakistan is trying to undermine the US-Israel relationship (Tiwari, 2026). As a result, while both states still maintain close strategic relations, there is growing divergence on the strategy that should be employed in addressing different threats. Seeing the same storm through different windows, they are pursuing different paths toward the same objective.
Is the Special Relationship Really Ending?
According to the January 2026 report of the Australian Institute, this isn’t a short-term decline limited to the Gaza war but a change that will last longer (Denniss et al., 2026). This relationship is special because the political parties agree on this support towards Israel even though the country is divided. Even long-time supporters of Israel, such as former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, have publicly advised that the relationship is at a “crossroads” and that Israel’s own policies in Gaza and the West Bank are weakening its standing in America (Sloan & Peoples, 2026).
A superpower can be under the influence of various lobbying groups, but it never compromises its integrity. This principle is the key to the question of whether the special relationship between the US and Israel is ending or not. Recently, in June 2026, responding to the Israeli officials, US VP JD Vance stated, “They should not attack the only powerful ally they have anywhere left in the entire world” (Goodwin, 2026).
This shows that the US itself believes in the fact that the world has isolated Israel. Decades long strong influence of Israel inside the American politics, ever changing public opinion in the US which is mostly going against Israel, growing discontent between Israeli and American officials and divergent regional and global priorities are al hinting towards one thing: if not ending, the relationship no longer enjoys unconditional support and partnership.
Conclusion
“Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.” (H. G. Wells)
This strategic relationship between both is not new; it’s since the birth of Israel. Both the US and Israel had common goals and rivals, and this is why this military cooperation is not a merger but a multi-decade integration of defense, financial aid, technology, and operational policies. As the United States reassesses its global priorities and the domestic political scene changes, the alliance is being more and more seen through the lens of interests, not assumptions. In international affairs, even the closest of alliances have to change their ways or risk becoming the hostages of an evolving environment.
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