Warnings from Rahm Emanuel and Tucker Carlson show that criticism of Israel is spreading through both the Democratic centre and the nationalist American right, as United Nations votes, European restrictions and public opposition weaken an alliance once considered politically untouchable.
Standing before a packed auditorium at Tel Aviv University, Rahm Emanuel delivered a warning that would once have been almost unthinkable from a politician with his background.
Emanuel is not an antiwar activist or a traditional critic of Israel. He served as Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, represented Illinois in Congress, became mayor of Chicago and was appointed United States ambassador to Japan. His father was born in Jerusalem and fought in the 1948 war that established Israel, while Emanuel himself has spent much of his career defending the country.
He is also considering seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
Yet in his August 2026 address, Emanuel accused Israel’s leadership of turning the country into a “territorial pariah” and warned that its international isolation was becoming strategically unsustainable.
“You cannot fight indefinitely against a world that has stopped believing you have the right to fight,” Emanuel told the audience.
Only three months earlier, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson had delivered an even more confrontational message during a heated interview on Israel’s Channel 13.
Speaking to Israeli presenter Udi Segal, Carlson accused Israel of abandoning basic moral principles, questioned why the United States should continue financing and protecting it and alleged that Benjamin Netanyahu had pressured President Donald Trump into the 2026 war with Iran.
Carlson and Emanuel come from opposite sides of American politics. Emanuel represents the Democratic establishment, while Carlson has been one of the most influential voices within the nationalist “America First” movement that helped return Trump to the White House.
Their arguments are not identical. Emanuel wants to reconstruct the American Israeli relationship around conditions, regional diplomacy and Palestinian sovereignty. Carlson questions why the relationship should require American military, financial and diplomatic support at all.
Together, however, their interventions reveal that Israel’s political difficulties are no longer confined to progressive Democrats, student protesters or human rights organizations. The consensus is weakening simultaneously on the American left, in the political centre and among parts of the Republican right.
Israel still receives weapons, money and diplomatic protection from some of the most powerful governments in the world. Washington remains its indispensable military sponsor, while Germany and Britain have resisted demands for a decisive break over Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Look beyond those relationships, however, and a profound change is becoming visible.
Governments that once supported Israel almost automatically are abstaining, voting against it, suspending defence agreements, restricting military cooperation and openly discussing economic sanctions. Political actions that would have appeared unthinkable little more than a decade ago are gradually becoming part of mainstream debate.
In a widely viewed video published on May 8, 2026, foreign affairs journalist Max Fisher argued that these apparently isolated developments form part of a much larger transformation. His central claim is not that the West has already abandoned Israel, but that the broad political consensus underpinning Western support is steadily disintegrating.
Each individual measure may appear limited. Placed together on a map and viewed over a longer historical period, they show an international alliance moving towards a possible breaking point.
The map that reveals the change
Fisher begins his analysis with a United Nations vote from October 2011, when Palestine applied to become a full member of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Palestine’s admission was approved by 107 countries, with 14 voting against and 52 abstaining. The countries opposing or declining to support Palestinian membership included many of Israel’s traditional Western allies and smaller states dependent upon Western economic or diplomatic support. United Nations records confirm the result of the 2011 vote.
The decision was more politically significant than the administrative nature of UNESCO might suggest. Palestinian membership strengthened the principle that Palestine could participate in international institutions as a state, something successive Israeli governments have resisted without a negotiated settlement conducted on Israeli terms.
The 2011 map therefore offered a picture of the international bloc prepared to protect Israel even on a relatively modest question of Palestinian participation in a cultural and educational organization.
By 2024, that map had changed.
In April of that year, the United States vetoed a Security Council recommendation that would have allowed Palestine to become a full United Nations member. The General Assembly responded on May 10 by declaring Palestine qualified for membership and recommending that the Security Council reconsider the application.
The resolution passed with 143 votes in favour, nine against and 25 abstentions. It could not confer full membership without Security Council approval, but it expanded Palestinian participation within the General Assembly and delivered an unmistakable diplomatic message. The United Nations recorded the vote and the enhanced rights granted to Palestine.
Among the countries Fisher identifies as moving away from their 2011 positions were Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Poland, Portugal and Estonia, together with several states in Africa and the Caribbean.
Not all had become committed supporters of Palestinian statehood, and a symbolic United Nations vote is not equivalent to imposing material consequences on Israel. Nevertheless, the movement showed that governments once willing to follow Washington’s lead were increasingly prepared to separate themselves from it.
Gaza transformed the political cost
The shift accelerated during Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The scale of Palestinian civilian deaths, the destruction of homes and essential infrastructure, restrictions on humanitarian assistance and allegations that starvation had been used as a method of warfare changed the political calculations of governments that had initially defended Israel’s actions as legitimate self defence following the Hamas led attacks of October 7, 2023.
Emanuel acknowledged the trauma caused by those attacks during his visit. Hamas led fighters killed approximately 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, leaving many Israelis with a profound sense of vulnerability that continues to shape the country’s politics.
The scale of Israel’s response has been vastly greater. By August 2026, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 73,000 Palestinians had been killed, including people killed after ceasefire arrangements were announced. The ministry is part of the Hamas administered government, but its detailed casualty records have generally been regarded as reliable by United Nations agencies and independent specialists. The latest figures were reported by the Associated Press.
Israel rejects allegations that it has deliberately targeted civilians or committed genocide, maintaining that its operations are directed against Hamas and other armed groups. International legal scrutiny has nevertheless deepened.
On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant over allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The warrants do not constitute convictions, but they transformed Netanyahu from a routinely welcomed Western ally into a leader whose overseas travel could expose governments to legal and diplomatic confrontation. The ICC lists Netanyahu as the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant.
For many governments, continued support for Israel consequently became more difficult to present as an ordinary alliance with a democratic state. It increasingly required them to defend military operations, settlement expansion and occupation policies rejected by large sections of their own populations.
The 2026 war with Iran intensified that pressure. European governments faced not only moral and legal questions but severe economic consequences as attacks, instability and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz affected fuel supplies, transportation and living costs.
Fisher describes Gaza and Iran as catalysts rather than the original cause of Israel’s deteriorating international position. The underlying movement, he argues, had been developing for years.
Europe’s criticism becomes material
Europe is central to Israel’s place in the Western political system. The European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for 31.7 per cent of its total trade in goods during 2025. Approximately one third of Israeli imports came from the bloc, while almost 30 per cent of its exports went to European markets. The European Commission describes the EU as Israel’s largest trading partner.
European support also helps transform Israel’s close relationship with the United States into the appearance of a broader Western consensus. Any substantial rupture with Europe would therefore carry political consequences beyond individual trade or defence agreements.
Several European governments have begun testing the limits of that relationship.
Spain imposed an arms embargo, while Ireland and Slovenia joined calls for stronger European action. Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, pressed for tougher sanctions and condemned Israeli military conduct as disproportionate and indiscriminate. He also indicated that Belgium could support much wider economic measures if European opposition to sanctions weakened.
Italy provided one of the most striking examples. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had led a government broadly sympathetic to Israel, yet in April 2026 she suspended the automatic renewal of Italy’s defence cooperation agreement with the country.
The agreement covered military training, equipment procurement, arms trading and technological research. Its suspension followed tensions over Israel’s operations in Lebanon and an incident involving Italian United Nations peacekeepers. Reuters reported that Italy’s decision represented a marked change for Meloni’s government.
France also restricted particular military overflights connected to weapons transfers, prompting Israel to announce that it would halt defence purchases from French suppliers. The French action was not a blanket closure of its airspace to every military flight, but the dispute demonstrated how quickly technical decisions could escalate into wider diplomatic and commercial retaliation.
These measures do not yet amount to a coordinated European embargo. Divisions within the European Union remain substantial, and governments including Germany have continued to protect Israel from the most consequential proposals.
The direction of travel is nevertheless difficult to ignore. Discussions once confined to solidarity movements and the political margins have entered foreign ministries, national parliaments and European institutions.
The weapons relationship remains unequal
Israel has developed one of the world’s most sophisticated domestic military industries, particularly in drones, missiles, surveillance, intelligence systems and air defence. That capacity gives it considerably more independence than it possessed during earlier Arab Israeli wars.
It does not, however, make Israel militarily self sufficient.
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that the United States supplied 68 per cent of Israel’s major arms imports between 2021 and 2025, while Germany supplied another 31 per cent. Israel’s active combat aircraft are American built, and its military continues to depend on imported aircraft, guided bombs, missiles and armoured vehicles for essential capabilities. SIPRI concludes that Israel remains heavily dependent on the United States for major weapons systems.
This distinction matters because Israel can withstand the loss of an individual European supplier more easily than it could survive a comprehensive Western embargo. Restrictions imposed by Spain, Italy or France may be politically significant without immediately depriving the Israeli military of its central capabilities.
The decisive question remains whether those national measures eventually create enough momentum to affect Washington and Berlin.
Forty senators cross a former red line
The most important evidence of change inside the United States Congress came in April 2026, when Senator Bernie Sanders forced votes on resolutions intended to block almost half a billion dollars in arms sales to Israel.
One resolution, concerning the proposed sale of 1,000 pound bombs and associated support, was defeated by 59 votes to 40. A second resolution was defeated by 63 votes to 36.
The measures failed, but the result would have been almost inconceivable during an earlier era of American politics. Four in every ten senators voted to stop a major category of weapons from reaching Israel. The official Senate roll call recorded the 40 to 59 vote.
The result did not represent an American arms embargo, nor did it end Israel’s privileged position in Washington. It showed that opposition to unconditional military support had acquired a substantial institutional base.
Fisher argues that such votes also send a message beyond the United States. European and allied governments are more likely to confront Israel when they believe the political consensus in Washington is weakening. American dissent therefore changes the calculations of countries that once feared diplomatic isolation or retaliation for taking action independently.
Democratic support begins to collapse
The transformation within the Democratic Party extends well beyond the Senate.
An Associated Press NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found that 58 per cent of Democrats believed the United States was too supportive of Israel. That figure had risen from 45 per cent in January 2024.
Approximately half of Democratic respondents said they believed Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, an allegation Israel vehemently denies. The AP NORC survey documents the scale of the change within the party.
The findings among Jewish Americans were equally revealing. Jewish adults, who have traditionally leaned heavily towards the Democratic Party, expressed a slightly more favourable opinion of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, than of Netanyahu.
Jewish identity and support for the Israeli government can no longer be treated as interchangeable political positions. Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump and the Republican Party may have strengthened Israel’s immediate access to the White House, but it has also accelerated the collapse of Israel’s standing among Democrats.
Polling presented in Fisher’s analysis showed the same divide by age. Younger Americans held overwhelmingly negative views of Israel, middle aged adults had also become substantially more critical, and only the oldest groups remained firmly supportive.
The alliance has consequently developed both a partisan and demographic problem. Its most committed defenders are concentrated among voters and politicians whose understanding of Israel was shaped by the Holocaust, the Arab Israeli wars, the Cold War and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Younger generations are more likely to encounter Israel through images of occupation, settlements, bombardment and Palestinian displacement.
Tucker Carlson takes the argument to Israeli television
The growing revolt against unconditional support for Israel is not confined to Democrats.
On May 19, 2026, Tucker Carlson appeared on Israel’s Channel 13 for a confrontational interview with presenter Udi Segal. Carlson, formerly the highest profile presenter on Fox News and later an influential independent broadcaster, had already become one of the most prominent conservative opponents of American involvement in the war with Iran.
The interview brought that disagreement directly into Israeli homes.
Carlson described Israel as possibly the world’s most violent state and accused its government of publicly celebrating the assassination of political and scientific opponents. Segal challenged the comparison, arguing that Israel was surrounded by enemies, had repeatedly been attacked and was acting in self defence.
Carlson rejected the defence and declared: “Israel has definitely lost its morality.”
Segal reminded him of the October 7 attacks, including the killing of civilians, the taking of hostages and allegations of sexual violence. He asked Carlson to consider how the United States would have responded to an attack of comparable scale.
Carlson pointed to the American response to September 11, when the United States killed perpetrators of the attacks but also caused extensive civilian casualties through wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. He did not defend those actions as a model for Israel to follow. Instead, he argued that American wrongdoing demonstrated the need for a universal principle protecting civilians.
“You can’t kill a child,” Carlson said.
His argument was that neither October 7 nor September 11 could make the killing of innocent people morally acceptable. Civilian protection, he maintained, could not depend on the nationality, religion or political identity of the victim.
Segal insisted that Israel had not lost its morality and was fighting for survival. Carlson answered that the scale of civilian killing in Gaza made such claims increasingly impossible to sustain.
The exchange was significant not only because of Carlson’s language, but because it took place on a mainstream Israeli television network rather than before an American audience already sympathetic to his position. The original Channel 13 interview presented Carlson’s criticism directly to Israeli viewers.
Questioning the entire American obligation
Carlson then moved beyond criticism of Israel’s conduct to challenge the foundations of the American alliance.
“There’s no reason the United States should be sending any money at all to Israel,” he said.
Segal asked whether Carlson would accept such a policy if the consequence were Israel’s destruction. Carlson responded that he did not want Israel destroyed and did not want Israelis harmed. He said he had personally liked and supported the country.
What he rejected was the assumption that the United States was obligated to finance Israel’s military, supply its weapons, extend diplomatic protection, contribute American air and naval power and lend Israel the moral authority of the American government.
Carlson complained that questions about those obligations were frequently answered with accusations of antisemitism rather than a strategic explanation of how the support benefited the United States.
His position went considerably beyond Emanuel’s proposal to end direct defence subsidies. Emanuel sought to restructure the alliance while preserving it. Carlson questioned why the alliance should carry any automatic American military or financial commitment.
That argument reaches directly into the nationalist wing of the Republican Party. Trump returned to office promising to avoid further costly wars and to place American interests ahead of foreign commitments. For Carlson and other sceptics on the right, entering another Middle Eastern war at Israel’s urging represented a betrayal of that promise.
Did Netanyahu pull Trump into war?
The sharpest confrontation concerned the United States decision to join Israel’s war with Iran on February 28, 2026.
Segal challenged Carlson’s claim that Netanyahu had dragged Trump into the conflict. If a foreign leader could force the president of the United States into a war he did not want, Segal argued, that would suggest extraordinary weakness on Trump’s part.
Carlson said that was essentially what had happened.
He blamed Trump for yielding to pressure from Netanyahu, political donors and American media figures supportive of the Israeli government. Carlson alleged that Israel had chosen the timing of the war and that Washington had followed its decision rather than making an independent assessment of American interests.
These are Carlson’s allegations, and the Israeli and American governments reject the suggestion that Washington acted under Israeli control. The Trump administration maintains that its operations against Iran were necessary to defend American security and confront an Iranian threat.
The White House responded angrily to Carlson’s Channel 13 appearance, attacking his credibility and accusing him of spreading false information for publicity. It defended the military campaign and rejected his characterization of Trump as subordinate to Netanyahu. The dispute and the White House response were reported by the Times of Israel.
Carlson nevertheless articulated a belief that had already gained ground among antiwar conservatives: that Israel and its American supporters had used political influence to move the United States into a conflict offering few clear benefits to ordinary Americans.
The argument is particularly damaging for Netanyahu because it reverses the traditional political presentation of Israel as a strategic asset. Under Carlson’s interpretation, Israel is not protecting American interests in the Middle East but endangering them, consuming American resources and undermining American sovereignty.
Israel and the language of terrorism
The final clash came when Segal described Iran as a terrorist regime.
Carlson said an Israeli presenter should hesitate before using such language while Israel stood accused of killing thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. He made clear that he was not defending Iran, but argued that Israel could no longer claim an unquestioned moral position from which to condemn the violence of other states.
Segal viewed Iran as an aggressive government responsible for attacks on Israel through its regional allies and missile forces. Carlson’s answer was that Israel’s conduct in Gaza had deprived it of the authority to present its own violence as inherently defensive while categorizing the violence of its enemies as terrorism.
The disagreement exposed the widening gulf between how Israel continues to understand itself and how it is increasingly viewed abroad.
For many Israelis, October 7 confirmed that the country faces enemies committed to its destruction and that extraordinary military action is necessary for survival.
For Carlson, Fisher, Emanuel and growing sections of Western public opinion, that argument can no longer justify unrestricted warfare or the transfer of responsibility for Israeli security to foreign taxpayers and soldiers.
A fracture inside the Republican coalition
Carlson’s intervention carries particular political significance because support for Israel has become increasingly concentrated within the Republican Party.
Netanyahu cultivated a close relationship with Trump, evangelical Christian organizations, Republican donors and conservative media figures. That strategy delivered immediate political benefits, including diplomatic recognition, weapons supplies and protection from international pressure.
It also tied Israel’s position to a political coalition containing a powerful noninterventionist faction deeply suspicious of foreign wars.
Carlson has become one of the clearest representatives of that faction. His argument is framed less around Palestinian national rights than around American sovereignty, taxpayer money and opposition to military commitments that he believes do not serve the United States.
This distinction does not make his challenge less serious for Israel. It means the country is facing opposition from two directions at once.
Progressive and centrist critics increasingly focus on Palestinian deaths, settlements, occupation and international law. Nationalist conservatives focus on the cost of military aid, the influence of foreign governments and the danger of drawing American forces into regional wars.
Those groups disagree on many domestic and international questions, but they are beginning to converge on the conclusion that the existing relationship with Israel is unsustainable.
Rahm Emanuel’s plan to escape pariah status
Emanuel used his Tel Aviv speech to offer what he described as a route out of Israel’s isolation.
His proposals would represent a fundamental change in the American relationship with Israel. Emanuel argued that direct United States subsidies for Israel’s defence budget should end, with Israel instead purchasing American military equipment on terms comparable to other allies.
He also proposed sanctions against Israeli settlers who attack Palestinian civilians or property, together with penalties against politicians who encourage or defend such violence.
American governments had spent too long ignoring Israeli abuses, Emanuel argued, allowing the country’s most extreme political forces to grow in influence. Continued silence from Washington was no longer neutral because it operated as an endorsement of existing policy.
Emanuel pointed to Itamar Ben Gvir as an illustration of Israel’s political transformation. In 2009, when Emanuel criticized settlement expansion while serving in the Obama administration, Netanyahu reportedly branded him a “self hating Jew.” Israeli extremists subsequently protested against Emanuel during his son’s bar mitzvah in Jerusalem.
Among those detained during the protests was Ben Gvir, who later became Israel’s national security minister with authority over the police. For Emanuel, the journey of a far right activist from the margins of Israeli politics into one of its most powerful ministries symbolized the country’s direction during the Netanyahu era.
Emanuel also proposed replacing the increasingly moribund two state peace process with what he called a 23 state framework, bringing Israel, Palestine and the 21 members of the Arab League into a wider regional settlement.
Under the proposal, Arab governments would use their desire for stability and economic development to support an agreement addressing Israeli security and Palestinian sovereignty. Palestinians would be expected to build credible institutions and recognize the Jewish historical connection to the land, while Israel would be required to accept a viable path towards Palestinian statehood.
The economic dimension would include strengthening the proposed India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor, connecting India with Gulf countries, Israel and Europe through ports, railways, energy infrastructure and digital networks. Emanuel presented the corridor as both an alternative to China’s global infrastructure programme and an incentive for regional cooperation.
Such a plan would attempt to make Palestinian sovereignty part of a wider economic and diplomatic settlement rather than an indefinitely postponed bilateral negotiation controlled by the more powerful party.
Whether Arab states or Palestinians would accept Emanuel’s conditions remains uncertain. Decades of failed negotiations have created deep distrust, while Israel’s settlement programme has fragmented the territory that would be needed for a viable Palestinian state.
His proposals are nevertheless politically significant because they come from a figure who insists that Democrats do not need to abandon Israel to win the White House in 2028. Emanuel’s argument is that support for Israel must be separated from support for Netanyahu’s policies.
“The status quo is unacceptable,” he told the Associated Press.
A country that feels abandoned by its government
Emanuel’s visit also revealed a more complicated picture of Israeli society than external diplomatic arguments sometimes suggest.
He visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, and met President Isaac Herzog, while avoiding meetings with party political leaders ahead of Israel’s forthcoming elections. He toured a medical partnership through which doctors from Tel Aviv and Nablus train together and met researchers examining sexual violence committed during the October 7 attacks and against hostages.
In conversations with Israelis, Emanuel said he encountered an intense feeling that the country had been abandoned by its own government. The continuing trauma of October 7 remained visceral, while many Israelis believed Netanyahu had failed both to prevent the attack and to produce a credible political plan for what would follow the Gaza war.
His criticism was reportedly well received by the largely liberal Tel Aviv University audience, including when he condemned Netanyahu’s failure to prepare for Gaza’s political future.
Israeli media gave the speech relatively little attention amid coverage of the NATO conference in Turkey and fears of renewed conflict with Iran. Netanyahu’s office declined to respond.
The subdued reaction did not diminish the importance of the occasion. A potential American presidential candidate and longtime defender of Israel had travelled to Tel Aviv to tell Israelis that the policies of their government were endangering the country’s future.
An alliance built on historical memory
In 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the Israeli parliament and connected Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust to an enduring commitment to Israel’s security.
That history remains fundamental to German foreign policy, but Holocaust responsibility was never the only foundation of Western support.
During the Cold War, Israel came to be viewed as a reliable regional partner against governments aligned with the Soviet Union. After September 11, Israel successfully presented its conflict with Palestinians as part of the same global struggle against terrorism being pursued by the United States and its allies.
Israel was also promoted as a like minded democracy surrounded by authoritarian governments, creating an image of shared political identity between Israel, Europe and North America.
Those narratives were reinforced by Israel’s military victories in 1967 and 1973 and by decades of cultural, political and institutional cooperation.
The difficulty for Israel is that these foundations belong increasingly to history. As the formative events recede from living memory, Western audiences are judging Israel more heavily by what it does in the present.
They see an expanding settlement project in the occupied West Bank, military rule over Palestinians, repeated assaults on Gaza, discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel and political leaders openly hostile to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
The contrast between Israel as it was presented and Israel as it is experienced through contemporary reporting has become increasingly difficult to reconcile.
Fisher illustrates the older political outlook with a 2018 speech by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Schumer invoked a religious and nationalist claim to the land before insisting that the United States must stand with Israel “through thick and thin.”
For decades, language of that kind was rewarded by both major American parties. It now sounds increasingly remote from the views of younger voters who regard Palestinian rights, occupation and international law as central rather than peripheral questions.
Israel prepares for a more isolated future
Israeli leaders have not been unaware of this danger. Fisher argues that the country has spent years preparing for the possibility of a serious break with the West.
The strategy includes expanding domestic weapons production, reducing dependence on vulnerable neighbours and building relationships with governments that admire Israel’s militarism and assertive nationalism.
Peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, together with normalization agreements involving the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, reduced Israel’s regional isolation. Security contacts and attempted diplomatic engagement with Saudi Arabia provided further protection, although Israel and Saudi Arabia did not establish a formal peace treaty.
Israeli politics also moved sharply towards nationalist and religious parties whose voters are less interested in satisfying Western governments. For parts of the electorate, defying Washington or European capitals has become evidence of strength.
Settlement expansion offers the clearest example. Earlier Israeli governments frequently adjusted the timing or presentation of settlement decisions in response to American pressure. More recent governments have often treated confrontation with Washington as politically useful.
This greater autonomy helps explain why Israeli leaders can disregard requests from even supportive American administrations. Israel still benefits enormously from Western funding, weapons and diplomatic protection, but preserving that support no longer appears to outweigh every domestic political or ideological objective.
The uncertain search for “other friends”
A further part of Israel’s strategy involved cultivating governments outside the traditional liberal Western alliance.
Israeli political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin described this approach, with deliberate irony, as the “Other Friends Policy.” Its most important partners included the governments of India, Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary under Viktor Orbán.
These alliances were not built primarily on Holocaust memory or the Cold War. They were built on admiration for Israel as a model of militarized nationalism, border control, surveillance and an unapologetic assertion of majority ethnic identity.
For a time, the strategy appeared successful. Orbán’s government became Israel’s most dependable protector inside the European Union, using Hungary’s veto power to obstruct sanctions and other collective measures.
The political foundations of these relationships proved less durable than Israel hoped.
Bolsonaro lost power in Brazil and was later imprisoned following his conviction over a failed attempt to overturn the country’s democratic order. In Hungary, Orbán’s government was defeated in 2026 by Péter Magyar, who indicated that his administration would comply with international legal obligations concerning Netanyahu.
The change was particularly damaging because Hungary had announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court after welcoming Netanyahu despite the warrant against him. A successor government willing to reverse that approach would deprive Israel of both a diplomatic ally and a crucial European veto.
India remains an important partner, but the weakening of the Brazilian and Hungarian relationships shows the danger of relying on individual nationalist leaders. When those leaders fall, the alliance can disappear with them.
Erosion is not yet abandonment
It would be misleading to claim that Israel has already lost the West.
American weapons continue to sustain Israeli military operations. European trade continues on an enormous scale. Germany, Britain and the United States remain resistant to comprehensive sanctions, while diplomatic criticism has often been separated from meaningful action.
The people of Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon experience Western policy through bombs, military components and political protection rather than through symbolic United Nations votes.
What has changed is the breadth and confidence of the coalition supporting those policies.
The Western relationship with Israel was once sustained by a deep political consensus extending across governments, parties, media organizations and much of the public. It is now increasingly maintained by a smaller group of political leaders facing opposition from voters, legislators, protest movements and, in some cases, members of their own parties.
Emanuel’s intervention demonstrates why that distinction matters. When one of Israel’s longstanding defenders travels to Tel Aviv and warns that the country has become an international pariah, the criticism can no longer be dismissed as the product of a hostile political fringe.
Carlson’s Channel 13 confrontation demonstrates the danger from the opposite direction. When one of the most influential voices on the American nationalist right challenges military aid and accuses Israel of pulling Washington into an unwanted war, Netanyahu can no longer assume that Republican support will remain automatic either.
That does not make an immediate rupture inevitable. Governments can resist public pressure for years, particularly when military, intelligence and commercial interests are deeply embedded.
It does mean that Israel’s international position is more fragile than the continued flow of Western weapons might suggest.
Fisher’s map records a gradual diplomatic retreat, but the consequences could eventually become material. United Nations votes can lead to recognition. Recognition can generate legal obligations. Political criticism can become restrictions on trade, military cooperation and travel. Isolated national measures can create the conditions for collective action.
The world has not fully turned on Israel, but the assumption that Western support will remain permanent and unconditional is becoming harder to defend.
For Israel, that may be the most consequential change of all.