Contemplating a Post-Zionist America

"As influential voices on both sides of the aisle turn on the Jewish state, responsible leaders must plan for a darker future — while doing whatever they can to prevent it."

By Avi Mayer

Special Guest Commentary

Photo by James Emery.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today I am pleased to share an important column by

Avi Mayer

from his new Substack publication: JERUSALEM JOURNAL. Avi has served in senior roles at AJC and The Jewish Agency, and most recently as Editor-in-Chief for The Jerusalem Post.

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This past Friday evening, as my Shabbat dinner guests found their seats in my Jerusalem garden, I proposed a novel Fourth of July icebreaker: your favorite figure from U.S. history.

As we went around the table, we assembled an impressive roster, from Benjamin Franklin to Rosa Parks, Bruce Springsteen to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There was a cool midsummer breeze and the flames from the candles danced merrily, reflecting against the wine glasses. When my turn came, I said that while I admired many figures from throughout American history, the one who stood out was Justice Louis Brandeis.

Before being named the first Jewish associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916, Brandeis had already earned a reputation as “the people’s lawyer,” taking numerous pro bono cases to advocate for civil liberties, freedom of speech, and social justice. His twenty-three years on the bench were marked by unflinching dedication to upholding the individual rights of ordinary citizens, which he saw as essential to American democracy, and his ideas have left an indelible mark on modern jurisprudence.

He was also a staunch Zionist.

Though raised in a secular Jewish household in Kentucky, as Brandeis became more acutely aware of the persecution suffered by Jews around the world, he came to view the reconstitution of a Jewish homeland as the key to his people’s salvation. He became actively engaged in Zionist activity around 1910 and in 1914 was elected chairman of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, making him the de facto leader of the American Zionist movement. He spoke passionately about the essential compatibility of Zionism and American patriotism, pushing back forcefully against those who accused Zionist Jews of dual loyalty.

“Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism,” he said during a speech in Boston in 1915. “Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will likewise be a better man and a better American for doing so.”

“Zionism is a part of the larger movement of democracy that America leads,” he told a gathering in New York that same year. “It aims to make the Jews, a people without a country, once more self-reliant, self-supporting, and self-respecting. In so doing, it is but carrying out in another sphere the ideals which America champions — the ideals of liberty, democracy, and social justice.”

In many ways, Brandeis’s melding of American patriotism and Jewish pride — and his framing of U.S. values and interests as deeply intertwined with those of the Zionist movement and later the state it produced, Israel — have found expression in mainstream American discourse around Zionism and Israel for much of the past century.

For decades, support for Israel has been as American as apple pie. The American people have long been among the Jewish state’s greatest champions, consistently telling pollsters they overwhelmingly side with Israel over her adversaries and believe in the U.S.-Israel alliance. Support for Israel has become a litmus test in American politics, with candidates competing against one another to demonstrate their pro-Israel bona fides. Once elected, the country’s top leaders — both Democratic and Republican — reaffirm their dedication to Israel and to the U.S.-Israel relationship in their rhetoric, their voting records, and their budgetary allocations because being pro-Israel is not only considered good policy — it’s good politics.

But that may now be changing.

As Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza approaches its third year and the humanitarian plight of Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire continues to fill evening news broadcasts and social media feeds, America’s pro-Israel consensus has started to fracture. What had previously been relegated to younger demographic groups on the left has seeped into the American mainstream, infecting growing numbers of Americans on both sides of the political map.

Simply put, support for Israel has collapsed in large segments of the American electorate. A majority of Americans — 53% — now view the Jewish state unfavorably, according to a March poll by the Pew Research Center. A stunning 69% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel, as do 37% of Republicans, including half of Republicans under 50. A Quinnipiac survey released in May found that public sympathy for Israel has sunk to 37% — a historic low — compared to 32% for the Palestinians (a historic high) and 31% who declined to take a side. Both polling firms found that support for Israel has slid precipitously during the war; according to Quinnipiac, support for Israel dropped from 61% in October 2023 to 46% in May 2024 before dropping to its current level one year later.

But tempting as it may be to attribute the decline in U.S. public support for Israel to the war alone, the data indicate that it has been a long time coming. Democratic support for Israel has been steadily falling for decades and there has been a significant erosion among groups that have long formed the bedrock of Republican support, as well: a 2018 survey of young evangelicals found that 69% sided with Israel; an identical survey conducted just three years later, in 2021, found that proportion halved to under 34%.

Encouraged by these shifts in public opinion — and likely wishing to further accelerate them — influential figures on both sides of the political map have been steadily intensifying their rhetoric against Israel, occasionally drawing on antisemitic tropes. On the right, popular figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens have sharply criticized U.S. aid to Israel, questioned the loyalty of pro-Israel Americans, and featured vocal antisemites on their platforms. Meanwhile, on the left, influencers like Mehdi Hasan and Hasan Piker openly reject Zionism; endorse the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement; and have, at times, even justified violent antisemitic attacks.

Predictably, though somewhat belatedly, explicitly anti-Israel sentiments are now starting to find their way into mainstream electoral politics. The recent nomination of anti-Israel activist Zohran Mamdani as the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York sent shockwaves through the city’s Jewish community — the largest outside Israel. But perhaps most shocking has been the realization that, far from rendering him unelectable, Mamdani’s stances against the Jewish state may now be a political asset: a plurality of young voters in New York say that his support for BDS and his refusal to disavow the chant “Globalize the Intifada” — which, respondents were told, “some interpret as a call to violence against Jews” — make them “much more likely” to vote for him.

What once seemed unthinkable now appears increasingly plausible: a post-Zionist America.

To be sure, we aren’t anywhere near there — at least not yet. Critiques of Israeli policy, no matter how strident or widespread, do not automatically lead to the wholesale rejection of Israel or the negation of Jewish self-determination. But if current trends continue, and if voting patterns start to reflect the shifting views of the electorate, we may find ourselves in uncharted territory.

The ramifications of a changed America could be wide-ranging, deeply impacting both American Jewish life and Israeli national security.

An America that is intolerant of a core element of contemporary Jewish identity would be a place in which American Jews would feel — and be made to feel — increasingly uncomfortable. From the Soviet Union to the Middle East to western Europe, hostility to Zionism on the part of national leaders and elites has always precipitated societal antisemitism, forcing Jews to confront painful dilemmas. The politics of exclusion that has long targeted pro-Israel Jews on U.S. college campuses could become the national norm, affecting all spheres of public life. The Golden Age of American Jewry, as The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer put it, would come to an end.

The impact on Israel would be no less severe. The dissolution of the U.S.-Israel alliance — a pillar of Israel’s national security for more than half a century — would force a complete rethinking of the Jewish state’s defense doctrine. No longer able to rely on American-made military equipment, Israel would be forced to either look elsewhere or rapidly develop its own domestic capabilities. The strain on Israel’s economy would be enormous; broad budget cuts would be needed to make up for the loss of U.S. military aid, affecting all areas of life in the country, and a downgrade in economic ties with Israel’s largest trading partner would scare away foreign companies and investors, deal a massive blow to Israeli exporters, and cause the economy to contract. Without America’s diplomatic backing, Israel would find itself increasingly isolated on the global stage, with both longtime friends and newfound allies rethinking their allegiances. The world would become immeasurably more dangerous for the Jewish state.

Painful as it may be to even consider such a reality, and distant as it may currently seem, American Jewish communal leaders and Israeli officials would be wise to start developing contingency plans to deal with it, if and when it comes.

In fact, Israel may already be doing exactly that.

Two years ago, journalist Amit Segal wrote in Yediot Ahronot that Israeli military planners are already operating under the assumption that an aircraft that enters service now, with a projected lifespan of fifty to sixty years, will at some point find itself without spare parts because a hostile U.S. administration will refuse to sell them to Israel.

That Israeli officials are starting to consider a changing American political landscape in their long-term planning is prudent. The loss of robust American support would represent a massive challenge that would necessitate rethinking Israel’s defense posture, budgetary priorities, industrial outputs, diplomatic strategy, and relationship with American Jewry, among numerous other policy areas. Now is the time for Israeli government ministries to form both internal and interagency task forces to develop working plans that will enable the country to navigate the choppy waters that may lie ahead.

For their part, American Jewish leaders ought to consider how American Jewish life might look in a changed America. They, too, should be developing integrated working plans to deal with various eventualities, informed by the experiences of other Jewish communities that have weathered similar shifts in their societies. Questions of communal safety, political involvement, government and intergroup relations, Jewish engagement and education, travel to Israel, philanthropic and business ties to the Jewish state, and many others will have to be considered as American Jewish communal leaders and organizations think about how they might deal with a post-Zionist America.

But, as Benjamin Franklin once famously said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Even as Israeli officials and American Jewish communal leaders plan for the possibility of an America more hostile to the Jewish state — and they certainly ought to do so — now is the time to double down on smart, strategic efforts to ensure it never comes into being.

Israel needs to do whatever it can to swiftly bring back the remaining hostages and end the war, while insisting on basic security measures and participating in efforts to rebuild Gaza and address the humanitarian plight of its civilian population. It should actively pursue normalization and diplomatic engagement with its neighbors and other countries in the Muslim world. Its elected officials, on both sides of the political map, must develop a global consciousness and refrain from imprudent and inflammatory rhetoric that causes Israel immense harm on the world stage.

The Israeli government should invest heavily in targeted, data-driven efforts to engage various high-priority audiences and groups in the United States — including those that some have written off — using messaging, messengers, and methods specially suited to each. Israel should aim to bring as many Americans to visit the country as possible, on both individual and group trips, and should fund subsidies and incentives to offset costs. Religious, academic, cultural, and business ties should be further cultivated and strengthened in order to send the unmistakable message that the bond between the U.S. and Israel is too valuable to fray.

At the same time, American Jews must emphasize that their relationship with Israel isn’t a mere political preference, but rather a matter of identity, and assaults on those basic ties are attacks on Judaism itself. Drawing on survey data indicating that Americans of all backgrounds recognize that denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism, American Jews should stress that their Zionism is not a commentary on this or that government, but rather an expression of support for its secure and peaceful existence as a Jewish state — and that the rejection of Israel’s existence, no matter by whom, is an expression of Jew-hatred. Those who engage in anti-Zionist rhetoric should be recognized as beyond the pale in American public life.

Now is the time to put our egos aside for the greater good. American Jews should consider how to pool their collective resources and work collaboratively, viewing relative strengths and focus areas as complementary, rather than competitive. Philanthropists and professionals should work together to ensure that funds are being invested strategically in order to enable robust and sustained engagement with relevant political, educational, nonprofit, academic, religious, ethnic, journalistic, cultural, and business circles. Targeted efforts should be supplemented by broad, nationwide campaigns utilizing both traditional and social media, influential voices, and tested messaging to emphasize the vital importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance.

And, of course, even as outward-facing engagement is scaled up, efforts to deepen Jewish education, strengthen Jewish identity, and expand Israel experience opportunities for American Jewish teens and young people must also be dramatically expanded. If American Jews cannot articulate Israel’s centrality to their lives and identities, we can hardly expect non-Jewish Americans to appreciate why their country’s relationship with the Jewish state is so critical.

The sky is not falling. America remains a reliable and trusted friend to Israel and there are still many Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs who support their country’s strong partnership with its closest ally in the Middle East. Even if animus toward Israel becomes more prevalent and politically potent, it will likely take time for that sentiment to be reflected in policy — the U.S.-Israel alliance still makes strategic sense for the United States and that will not change anytime soon.

Perhaps more than anything, a diminished American alliance with Israel would not only imperil the Jewish state and distress American Jews, but also erode a core element of America’s essential identity as a champion of democracy and freedom. As Brandeis foresaw more than a century ago, the bond between our two nations is not merely political, but deeply moral. An America less inclined to support Israel — a country that, for all its complexities, shares the same basic values as the United States — will have lost something fundamental to its own sense of self, and the American people won’t soon give up what makes their nation such a powerful force for good in the world.

But although a post-Zionist America is not an inevitability, it is also no longer an impossibility, and it is time for our leaders, on both sides of the Atlantic, to take that prospect seriously, plan for it, and do everything possible to ensure it never comes to pass.

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