Israel’s Rush for a Binding U.S. Security Guarantee Seen by Critics as an Attempt to Pre-Empt Fallout From Epstein-Related Political Vulnerabilities
Israeli leaders are pushing for a twenty-year USD$4 billion a year defence guarantee at a moment when their position in the American system is weakening. They can see public opinion turning, congressional support thinning, and the political class fragmenting. Independent analysts have been warning for some time that Israel’s long reliance on bipartisan protection is entering a fragile phase. That fragility explains why the push for a multi-decade pact is running parallel to the sudden re-emergence of the Epstein archive, which has reopened questions about influence networks, political compromise and the pressure points that shape decisions at the highest level.
Whitney Webb has been one of the few researchers who studied Epstein as a system rather than a scandal. Her work describes a structure that used compromised elites to secure policy outcomes for intelligence-linked actors. She outlined how sexual leverage, financial entanglement and illicit favours formed a pipeline through which foreign and domestic interests extracted obedience from American officials. Her analysis places Epstein in a network that crossed US, Israeli and British power centres, and she documented ties between Epstein and figures linked to Israeli intelligence operations. Those claims were dismissed by establishment commentators for years, but the newly released material now supports key elements of her earlier reporting, which strengthens the credibility of her model.
(Trump misses the days where “One bad word about Israel and you were virtually out of politics.”)The leaked emails place Donald Trump in Epstein’s orbit while he was in office. They show casual references to shared holidays, shared girlfriends and the kind of private familiarity that contradicts the public narrative about a rupture between them. Epstein’s remark that Trump asked Maxwell to “stop” the girls indicates a level of awareness that runs against the claim that Trump kept his distance. The note from Epstein’s victim about avoiding the house early in case Trump was there reinforces that sense of routine contact. Those details matter because they expose the political risk Trump carries as he negotiates US–Israel arrangements at a time when Israel’s strategic needs are unusually sharp.
Glenn Greenwald has argued repeatedly that political elites survive by managing public perception rather than by dealing with the substance of their actions. The Epstein releases land at a moment when that perception management is failing. Greenwald notes that digital platforms have eroded the state’s former monopoly over scandal narrative control. In the present case, millions of Americans are reading the emails directly, drawing their own conclusions and bypassing the legacy press. That shift is accelerating a wider collapse of trust that leaves Israel with fewer dependable allies in Washington, particularly among younger voters who already reject the occupation and reject large military giveaways.
Alon Mizrahi points out that the timing of the document dump aligns neatly with Israel’s need for the impression of calm in Gaza. Israel requires a cooling of public anger to push a twenty-year guarantee through Congress with a comfortable majority. Mizrahi argues that any image of ongoing civilian harm in Gaza would harden opposition inside the Democratic caucus and further fracture the Republican base. His reading holds that an apparent ceasefire gives congressional sceptics political cover while giving Israel room to pursue its long-term aims on the ground. The defence pact would then lock US support in place long after today’s political actors have left the stage. One key feature of this scandal is the framing of it, linking Trump to Epstein and not Israel to Epstein.
Norman Finkelstein places the current moment in a longer pattern of Israeli strategy. His work traces how Israel has relied on American political protection to sustain policies that break international norms. He argues that Israel treats every formal agreement not as a diplomatic stabiliser but as a shield behind which it can consolidate territorial control. A twenty-year guarantee would serve that purpose again. It would give Israel a strategic insurance policy while it recalibrates its presence in Gaza and the wider region. Finkelstein has stressed that Israeli leaders act with urgency when they sense the American tide turning, and that is what is happening now.
(Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green)John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s studies of US–Israel policy show how influence networks bend American priorities. Their work on the Israel lobby explains how foreign and domestic actors have used sustained pressure, campaign funding, kompromat, media alliances and established networks to lock Washington into policies that do not align with US public opinion or strategic interest. The Epstein material does not undermine their thesis; it reinforces it. If Epstein acted as a channel for leverage and if that leverage reached into the political class, then those who seek long-term guarantees would obviously use every available pressure point to secure them before a political realignment closes that window.
Craig Murray has noted that scandals of this size usually break when factions within the state see advantage in exposing them. He has written about how deep-state interests leak selectively to discipline political figures or to shape policy outcomes. Murray argues that the current release fits that pattern. Trump is placed under pressure at the exact moment when Israel needs a signature, a legislative majority and a narrative shield before public anger over Gaza, US decline in the region and shifting global alignments make the deal impossible to pass. Murray sees the timing as a sign that powerful institutions are protecting their own interests rather than the interests of any elected official.
Richard Silverstein, who has long covered Israeli security politics, has argued that Israel uses foreign crises and domestic scandals to leverage support from American leaders. He has shown how Israeli intelligence services maintain extensive files on political figures and how those files form an informal pressure system. The Epstein archive, which intersects with individuals tied to Israeli institutions, fits with Silverstein’s long-standing reporting that Israel uses kompromat to secure foreign policy outcomes. He warns that the selective release of the archive appears designed to signal consequences rather than provide transparency.
The political landscape around Trump is shifting fast. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and other right-aligned commentators who once offered reliable defence of Israel have broken ranks. They are describing an era of exhaustion with foreign entanglements. Carlson has warned that unconditional support for Israel is out of step with the American mood. Owens has criticised the moral and financial cost of the Gaza campaign. Those breaks matter because they reflect the wider fracture of the MAGA coalition. The base that backed Trump in 2016 and 2020 is no longer monolithic. Young conservatives, libertarians and populists are questioning American involvement abroad and are rejecting the idea that US taxpayers must underwrite foreign military expansion for decades.
(Trump refuses to answer any questions on Epstein)Josh Paul, the former State Department official who resigned over weapons transfers to Israel, has explained that institutional dissent is growing. He stated that many inside the government recognise the legal and moral risks of continuing support without conditions. His resignation was treated as symbolic at the time, but in the present climate it looks more like the first visible sign of a larger internal revolt. Paul’s argument is that Israel’s current war approach and its pressure for long-term guarantees run counter to the values and interests of the US civil service, which has become increasingly uneasy with being drawn into indefinite conflict.
Andrew Cockburn has written widely on the cost of America’s Middle Eastern commitments. He notes that long-term defence pacts serve the interests of defence contractors, intelligence bureaucracies and foreign partners who rely on permanent American subsidy. Cockburn stresses that once legislated, these pacts are difficult to unwind. They become mechanisms that tie the US to policies regardless of changes in national interest. In the present case, a twenty-year guarantee would bind the US to Israel’s regional strategy even if public support collapses and even if America’s rising domestic crises demand retrenchment.
Gideon Levy, writing from within Israel, has said that Israeli leaders misread the global environment. He argues that they assume that American backing can be extended indefinitely through pressure, lobbying and manipulation, while ignoring the social movements that now oppose Israeli actions on principle. Levy warns that the shift in American public opinion is real and accelerating, and that Israeli leaders are reacting with panic rather than strategy. His view is that the drive for a long-term pact is a last attempt to freeze American commitment before the political climate changes beyond repair.
Aaron Maté has stressed that political elites use foreign policy commitments to protect themselves from accountability. He argues that bipartisan defence of Israel has often served as a shield against domestic scandal because leaders frame criticism as disloyalty or extremism. This tactic is failing. Maté notes that the Epstein material strips away the moral cover that once surrounded key figures. It exposes the political class as compromised and self-serving. That exposure reduces their ability to sell a twenty-year pact to an electorate that now associates Israel policy with corruption, manipulation and elite impunity.
Amjad Iraqi observes that American support for Israel once relied on the sense that Israel shared Western liberal values. The Gaza war has shattered that perception. Graphic evidence of mass civilian casualties, forced displacement and open annexation ambitions has undermined decades of narrative framing. Iraqi argues that younger Americans view Israel through the lens of racial violence and colonial power, which places it at odds with American social values. That shift erodes the cultural foundation on which long-term defence guarantees depend.
The political consequences for Trump are unavoidable. His poll numbers were already declining due to legal troubles, economic pressure and internal party conflict. The Epstein papers deepen that decline. They paint him as a man entangled with a predator long after he claimed to have severed ties. His base may ignore the claims, but independents, suburban voters and seniors will not. Those groups decide elections. Trump’s dependence on Israel-aligned donors, media allies and political operatives leaves him with little room to resist demands for the twenty-year pact. He knows that refusal risks full release of the archive, which may contain evidence far more damaging than what has emerged so far.
The US political class faces a public that wants the Epstein files released in full. Millions want accountability for the network that enabled trafficking, blackmail and political manipulation. The push crosses partisan lines. Progressives want justice for victims. Libertarians want transparency. Conservatives want to purge corruption. That unity is rare. It threatens every institution that relied on Epstein’s silence, including those tied to Israeli intelligence, US intelligence and the overlapping networks described by Webb, Silverstein and others. Those institutions have strong incentives to control the drip of information and to use it strategically rather than allow uncontrolled exposure.
The defence pact serves Israel’s interests because it would function as a political time capsule. It would secure two decades of military aid, diplomatic cover and intelligence cooperation regardless of future American elections. Israeli strategists see a world where US influence is declining, multipolar competition is rising, and domestic US politics is unstable. A long-term pact would guarantee that the next generation of American leaders inherits a locked-in commitment that cannot be reversed without political upheaval.
The release of partial Epstein files at this moment looks like a signal. The message is directed at Trump, at Congress and at anyone in Washington tempted to distance themselves from Israel. Comply and the drip will slow. Resist and more will emerge. Independent analysts like Murray, Webb and Silverstein see the pattern clearly because they have tracked similar leverage operations for years. The actors involved are not improvising; they are executing familiar pressure tactics in an environment where their grip is fading.
Public sentiment is shifting in a way Israel cannot easily reverse. American Jewish communities are divided. Evangelical support is declining among younger members. Populists on both left and right oppose foreign entanglements. Black, Latino and Arab communities are increasingly vocal against US military aid. The bipartisan consensus that once treated Israel as a sacred ally is breaking. High-profile defections from right-wing figures accelerate that trend because they signal that support for Israel is no longer a cultural requirement inside the conservative movement.
Israel’s leaders recognise the danger. They know they cannot rely on the next generation of Americans to support them. They also know that the Gaza war has cost them the moral currency they previously spent freely. They want a twenty-year guarantee now because they sense that this is the last political moment when such a deal is possible. The Epstein archive becomes part of that struggle because it creates fear among the very people Israel needs to secure the pact.
The American public is experiencing a kind of awakening. People see the links between foreign policy, corruption and elite impunity. They see that the same networks that protected Epstein still operate inside the political system. They see that scandals are managed rather than resolved. They see that foreign influence shapes decisions that should belong to the electorate. That awareness makes it harder to sell a new, generational commitment to a state whose actions are viewed with increasing suspicion.
The present moment is unstable. The Epstein material reshapes perceptions of the political class. The Gaza war reshapes perceptions of Israel. Trump’s decline reshapes perceptions of MAGA stability. The convergence of these crises creates a closing window for Israel. Its leaders will push hard for the twenty-year pact because they know that once public opinion fully shifts, the old tools of influence may no longer work.
(”Israel is controlling our foreign policy…I believe Israel through their lobby has manifested total power over the congress of the United States…”-Late James Traficant (Former US Representative)
The Epstein files
The consequences will be far-reaching. If the pact is passed, it will bind the US to Israel’s regional ambitions until mid-century. If it fails, Israel faces a strategic landscape it has not seen since its founding: a superpower ally that no longer offers unconditional support and a public that no longer accepts the old stories. Independent analysts have warned for years that this reckoning would come. The Epstein files merely accelerate the process.
(Ari Ben-Menashe, Israeli Intelligence officer says Netanyahu is blackmailing Trump:“The U.S. government is in Israel’s grip. Epstein was one of their tools. They used him to corner multiple American presidents, not just with sex, but with money and where it came from.”)
The political class will try to manage the scandal and deflect attention, but the public mood has hardened. People want the truth. They want the files. They want the network exposed. They want an end to the impunity that protected the powerful for decades. That demand will grow. It will shape elections. It will shape foreign policy. It will shape the future of the US–Israel relationship.
Israel’s leaders understand that reality, which is why they are racing to secure their insurance policy before the ground shifts under their feet.
Authored By: Global Geopolitics
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