The day after the elections in Hungary, a visual circulated on social media featuring headshots of four men: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu. An X was drawn over Orbán’s image. The message was clear: one is gone, three remain.
Of all the data from recent months pointing to Israel’s sharp decline in standing in the United States, this simple meme captures better than anything how deep — and deepening — the hole has become. Much of the world — and now many Americans in both parties — sees these four men as responsible for much of the current global suffering. The fact that two of them are leaders of the United States and Israel is both unprecedented and deeply troubling.
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US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are seen as responsible for much of the current global suffering
(Phtoos: Shutterstock, Prime Minister's Office)
The noise of Israel’s declining status in the United States has been especially loud over the past three years, but it is the culmination of a process that has unfolded over nearly two decades, one that no one seriously tried to stop and that may now be too late to reverse.
The latest Pew Research Center poll, showing that 60% of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel — including 41% of Republicans — is nothing short of a catastrophe. Israel’s position in the United States is far worse than many Israelis, living in a bubble, understand or choose to acknowledge.
Over the weekend, the satirical program “Saturday Night Live” joked that Netanyahu is the one giving orders to the U.S. military. It may have been a jab at Trump, but it also pointed a finger at Israel in a way that the American media mainstream — and there is nothing more mainstream than “Saturday Night Live” — had not dared to do in the past.
This growing backlash is now present almost everywhere outside Washington, but the history of American politics shows that what happens in the streets eventually reaches the halls of Capitol Hill — especially as the generation that still believes Israel is entitled to unconditional U.S. support approaches the end of its influence.
Netanyahu’s effort to break bipartisan support
Benjamin Netanyahu invested considerable effort in breaking the bipartisan consensus around Israel in the United States, and he indeed achieved a sweeping victory — except that today, 57% of Republicans aged 18 to 49 also hold an unfavorable view of Israel, which was likely not part of the plan. Since October 7, many in Israel have preferred to believe the problem is “hasbara” (public diplomacy), but that is an illusion and a form of denial.
It takes exceptional skill to convince people in the West that Iran’s repressive and violent regime is the victim, while the United States and Israel are cast as the axis of evil
The problem is not messaging — the problem is the images from Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and even Iran that reach audiences worldwide. It takes exceptional skill to convince people in the West that Iran’s repressive and violent regime is the victim, while the United States and Israel are cast as the axis of evil.
Tzippy ShmilovitzYears ago, Netanyahu’s government chose to align itself with far-right movements around the world, based on a distorted belief that white Christian supremacists who do not believe in democracy are preferable allies to liberal democrats. It was a disastrous policy, driven primarily by Netanyahu’s political survival. In that sense, Donald Trump has been a gift Netanyahu received a decade ago — one that keeps on giving.
But Orbán’s defeat underscores what a diligent student of history like Netanyahu surely knows: history moves in cycles, and no regime lasts forever. The flood may come after him, but when the primaries for the 2028 presidential campaign arrive and taking an anti-Israel stance becomes a prerequisite, it will no longer be possible to avoid looking in the mirror.