MAGA’s disenchantment with Israel
Democrats have long been split over the Jewish state. Cracks are appearing among Republicans, too
WHEN MIKE JOHNSON, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem on August 3rd, placing a handwritten note to God in its cracks, he declared: “Our prayer is that America will always stand with Israel.”
He went on to visit the Jewish settlement of Ariel, and met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in another settlement, Shiloh, deep in the occupied West Bank. Using the biblical terms for the territory, he said that “the mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people”, and promised to promote the use of the names in official American discourse.
Mr Johnson represents a well-established wing of the Republican Party that stands with Israel for the most part uncritically, and his itinerary signalled that many Republicans would bless a formal annexation of the West Bank by Israel. The party’s current establishment backs Israel not just in its right to exist as an embattled Jewish democracy, but in its more ethno-nationalist incarnation under Mr Netanyahu and his hard-right cabinet.
Yet there is a different and increasingly voluble view of America’s alliance emerging among Republicans, notably from some acolytes of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a firebrand congresswoman from Georgia, posted a startling statement on X on July 31st arguing: “Of course we are against radical Islamic terrorism, but we are also against genocide.” Her use of the word genocide, common on the left of the Democratic Party, was no error. “When people, innocent people, are systematically being killed for who they are, is that not the definition of genocide? I don’t know why I’m the only Republican saying it,” she told the Daily Mail.
Ms Greene is sometimes dismissed as a self-promoting gadfly, yet criticism of America’s alliance with Israel has also been reverberating in the MAGA echo chamber of influential podcasters, among them Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz and Joe Rogan. For the most part, MAGA sceptics seem motivated by fear of entanglement. A pivot point came during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June. Ms Greene, Mr Carlson and Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Mr Trump during his first term, were among those who warned that America risked being drawn into another disastrous and costly war in the Middle East. Mr Trump stilled their fears by ordering limited participation, sending B-2 bombers to destroy deeply buried nuclear facilities and then immediately imposing a ceasefire. But criticism of support for Israel seemed to become permissible on the grounds of America First principles.
In many ways, America First means what Mr Trump says it does. He has been inconsistent on Israel as on much else in his foreign policy, notably his shifting approach to the war in Ukraine. After he briefly joined Israel in bombing Iran last month, he cursed Mr Netanyahu on camera for breaching the ceasefire. He blames Hamas for the war in Gaza, but has bemoaned the “starvation” of Palestinians.
Yet influencers such as Mr Bannon suggest views about the alliance are changing across the MAGA voting coalition. “It seems that for the under-30-year-old MAGA base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu’s attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older MAGA diehards,” Mr Bannon told Politico.
According to the latest opinion polls conducted by YouGov for The Economist, support for Israel among those calling themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” remains strong but is falling (see chart). A survey by Pew published in April suggested that unfavourable views of Israel were most marked among young Republicans, aged 18-49. The age gap may reflect the influence of social-media images of suffering in Gaza, seen by younger voters, in contrast with the pro-Israel staple on conservative cable television channels such as Fox News. The changing views of self-identified conservatives must be understood in context: opinion polls show that support for Israel is declining across America. Disenchantment is most acute among Democrats. A majority of those calling themselves “liberal” or “very liberal” are now more likely to express sympathy for Palestine than for Israel.
Ms Greene’s dissent took on a moral and religious tone after the bombing of the Holy Family Church, the only Catholic church in Gaza. Israel expressed regret, saying the strike, which killed three people, was accidental. Ms Greene’s post denouncing “genocide” was written as part of her description of a conversation with a Christian pastor in the territory. “There are children starving. And Christians have been killed and injured, as well as many innocent people. If you are an American Christian, this should be absolutely unacceptable to you,” she wrote.
How far will this go? Mr Trump, for now the final arbiter of all things MAGA, has made clear he is on Israel’s side, despite his moments of irritation with Mr Netanyahu. Indeed, he has denounced Israel’s judicial system for charging the prime minister with corruption. America’s ambassador, Mike Huckabee, attended Mr Netanyahu’s trial in a show of support. Mr Trump ardently backed Israel during his first term and during his campaign for re-election last year. Once in office, he acted quickly to banish antisemitism from university campuses and elsewhere. Pro-Palestinian activists were arrested pending deportation.
Mr Trump’s improvisational approach to foreign policy is inherently difficult to categorise or forecast. On Ukraine, he has set an ultimatum this week for Russia to end the war or face economic punishment, not least through “secondary tariffs” on countries that buy Russian oil. How much pain he will inflict on the likes of India and China remains to be seen. But Mr Trump has already agreed to supply weapons to Ukraine if they are paid for by European countries. And he said he ordered the repositioning of two “nuclear submarines”, presumably boats carrying nuclear weapons, in response to Russian nuclear threats.
Ms Greene sees herself as increasingly alone in a party that, she argues, is reverting to its “neo-con” instincts. “I don’t know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I’m kind of not relating to the Republican Party as much anymore,” she told the Daily Mail. Whether she and other MAGA sceptics pull Mr Trump even partly away from long-standing Republican orthodoxy on Israel may yet shape the endgame of the war in Gaza and what follows. ■