The US-Israel Relationship After Trump – with Eli Lake

For decades, the U.S.-Israel relationship has been one of the defining features of American foreign policy. But as both political parties undergo change, many of the assumptions that have sustained the alliance for generations are being tested.

Host Aviva Klompas is joined by journalist and political commentator Eli Lake to examine the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship in an era of political realignment.

They discuss whether support for Israel is undergoing a temporary backlash or a more fundamental transformation, the forces driving changing attitudes toward Israel within the Democratic Party, and whether a return to bipartisan consensus is still possible. They also explore the rise of the America First movement, the implications of a potential J.D. Vance presidency, generational shifts in foreign policy thinking, and what the next decade could mean for one of America's most important alliances.

Speaker Bio

Eli Lake is a journalist and geopolitical analyst, currently a contributing editor and columnist at The Free Press and host of the excellent Breaking History podcast. He was previously a columnist for Bloomberg, The Daily Beast, and Newsweek, where he covered national security, foreign policy, and global affairs. Known for his sharp analysis and independent voice, Eli brings a nuanced and thought-provoking perspective to some of the most pressing issues in international politics.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The anti-Semites have taken over the Democratic Party. So if that's the party of hating the Jews and hating Israel, then it's natural that you would have the opponent to that party be the pro-Israel party.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Today is Wednesday, August 5th. This is Boundless Insights, and I'm Aviva Klampus. The US-Israel relationship has long been one of the defining features of American foreign policy. And that's been true through wars, peace processes, changes in government, and plenty of disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem. Now, for most of that history, the alliance rested on a combination of shared interests, shared values, and a broad political consensus that saw the relationship as strategically valuable. But today, debates surrounding Israel aren't confined to questions of policy. They're intertwined with larger questions about America's role in the world and fueled by debates that challenge not only Israel's actions, but its very legitimacy. And so we need to confront a difficult question. Are we living through a temporary period of political disturbance? Or could this be the last pro-Israel president of our lifetime? My guest today is Eli Lake. He's a staff columnist for the Free Press, a contributing editor at Commentary Magazine, and host of the Breaking History Podcast. There's a lot to discuss. Let's get into it. Eli, welcome back to Boundless Insights. I appreciate that so much. I want to talk to you today about this era of US-Israel relations and whether we can expect the future after Trump to be one that is promising or one that is grim. But before we get to prophecy, I was wondering if you could take us back and maybe compare Trump's second term with his first as it relates to Israel.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Well, um, I mean, I think it's in some ways it's a continuation because if you remember, one of the first things that Donald Trump does in his first term is he moves the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. You know, most presidential candidates had been promising to do that since Ronald Reagan. But there were always reasons as to why. And it was kind of conventional wisdom. I actually am embarrassed to say that I wrote a column I was at Bloomberg at the time, sort of saying you don't want to risk it, things are good with Israel right now. Everyone thought it would be so provocative, and and they and they did it and nothing really happened. And then that was a series of things. I mean, I would argue that Israel and the United States, I'm of the view that they don't have identical interests. I don't think anybody really argues that, but they certainly have a lot of overlapping interests. Um so things that were good for America, like killing Qasim Suleimani, also good for Israel. And I think that's how Trump saw it. And that orientation is kind of a good thing about Trump from a from the US-Israel relationship perspective. You know, Trump also got out of the Iran deal, which, you know, can be debated, is debated in Israel, debated among Israel supporters in America. I happen to think getting out of the Obama-Iran deal was good, but I understand that people can disagree with that. You compare that to his second term, there's a huge difference. The the Democratic Party has become, sadly, an anti-Israel party, which it wasn't before. I haven't made up my mind about well, when what's the moment that it be it started becoming an anti-Israel party? But a canary in the coal mine, I think, would have been in 2019, which is the first term when Ilhan Omar and AOC, this is the first generation of the squad are in the house. Ilhan Omar has a series of tweets that are unearthed. Some of them are comments that she makes at the time. One of them is like, oh, well, you want to know why people support Israel. It's all about the Benjamins baby. Initially, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the time had, I think, agreed largely to sort of language that would call out Ilhan Omar. And it was a resolution specifically against anti-Semitism. And then it gets watered down through intervention from other members, and Ilhan Omar is embraced by the Congressional Black Caucus, and they turn it into a condemnation of all bigotries, like a rainbow coalition of bad. And that's kind of where it starts. And she backs down and sort of says it again, and kind of this is the beginning of maybe a way to look at it as the campus anti-Zionism escaping the lab and coming into the Democratic Party. Now, there is a faction of the Republican Party and the right that's also pretty bad, but that's interesting too, because remember, Trump begins in this era in 2016. He is tagged as an avatar of the alt-right. And the alt-right are the kind of people who had been part of 4chan and 8chan and the dark places of the internet that thought Holocaust jokes were funny. And I mean, Hillary called them deplorables. Uh, it was unfortunate because a lot of Trump supporters had nothing to do with that. But they're this is like like the very online community of people who, sometimes known as um excrement posters. Trump, he didn't want to denounce them or didn't denounce them as fully. He fumbled when asked at times about things like, you know, what do you think of David Duke? And he didn't he say pretending I don't know who David Duke is. He's badly misquoted after Charlottesville.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

The very good people on both sides.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

What he's referring to is the debate over uh Confederate statues in Charlottesville, not these people from all over the country who called the Unite the Right who who were there chanting Jews will not replace us.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Right. It was a quote taken out of context. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Frankly, there are good people who would not want to tear down a Confederate statue and are not interested in kind of the the white supremacist politics. Anyway, Trump is in that in that first term, he's like the one who's opening the door, or at least he's tagged that way, I think a little unfairly, as opening the door for the anti-Semites. It turns out that when it comes to Trump's policies on Israel, he's the one who's kind of much more in line, I think, with understanding the problem that it faces American Jews and Israel in the US-Israel relationship. And now I'd say the Democrats, we are speaking on August 4th, 2026. This is the day that Michiganders are gonna vote for the uh Democratic nominee to represent the next senator from Michigan. And it looks like this guy, Abdul Al-Sayed, is gonna win. This is super significant because, you know, we already saw in this primary cycle lunatic candidates in New York City and urban districts that are kind of considered deep blue to have won. This is a swing state. Michigan's a big deal. If this guy kind of gets in the general election, he beats someone in a pretty conventional Republican named Mike Rogers, which I think is entirely possible, then we're really talking about, I think, not just a force within the Democratic Party. I think the Democratic Party, the traditional pro-Israel Democratic Party, is over. And I'll just say one more thing about this, Aviva. There was a vote in June, I believe, where it was for the massey amendment. This was an amendment that would cut off all, I think, arms sales to Israel. It was politics around, it was toxic. Now, I happen to be one of these people who thinks it's well past time for Israel to end the subsidy. I'd like to do it in a mutual, respectful way. Let's leave that aside. This was an atrocious vote, and I think it should have been considered a litmus test. A lot of Democrats passed. One of the Democrats who didn't, just a member of Congress right now, is Nancy Pelosi, the longtime speaker of the House, used to appear at every single APAC annual conference. This is extraordinary. The end of her life, but she voted with the jackals. That tells me everything.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

You laid that out really beautifully. That is the landscape and the ecosystem in which we are operating today. And the question is, do you see this as a temporary backlash? When we look back at the history of the relationship between Israel and the United States, there have been ups and downs. People tend to romanticize it maybe because they only remember the last couple of decades. But it has been all ups and downs. So do you see this as a temporary or really a long-term transformation to the extent that this might be the last pro-Israel president of our lifetime?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

If trends continue, yeah, it will be the last pro-Israel president of our lifetime. If trends continue, we are living in a populist moment. But we have right now in this cycle, particularly, I want to get back to Abdul al-Saeed, the reason that he's such a toxic person is because he has run on the idea that APAC, which is a lobby comprised of Americans, is a foreign lobby that is stealing the jobs and welfare and material happiness of people in Michigan. The reason you don't have good schools is because of APAC. The this is an effort to make APAC a toxic brand. This is an effort to kind of canonize as a kind of political litmus test the idea that the defense of war in Gaza is a genocide. This is opening the door and allowing in a bunch of foxes now to run a hen house. It is now letting in a hard-left ideology that we associate with third world governments, the United Nations, and sadly elite universities. This kind of anti-Semitism that we as Jews in diaspora have watched expand. But starting after the horrible pogrom on October 7th, 2023, literally within hours, on elite campuses, you saw people basically cheering for the rapists, the killers, and the kidnappers. That's what we're talking about. That kind of politics, that moral inversion, is now at the very best you could say tolerated within the Democratic Party.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

It's not just Saeed. You're talking about Gavin Newsom. You're talking about other more mainstream Democratic candidates that are coming out and feeling the need to say, I wouldn't take money from APAC. That's evil.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Well, look at a guy like Rokana. Rokana used to be supported by APAC. And I thought, listen, I think APAC has been flat-footed in many ways, but at least they're coming out on social media now and reminding him we gave you this money in this cycle and this cycle and this cycle. He turned on the dime. He saw that this there was a there was political gold in those hills. He wants to run for president as an ally. I mean, I don't think he's going anywhere. But, you know, and then there was a moment um, again, in this cycle, where he goes on the drop site podcast, and he is asked a series of questions about whether or not Hamas has a right to resistance in the context of October 7th. What was so deceptive is Jeremy Scale, who's always been a hard left kind of reporter, who thinks that Hamas is a legitimate organization and you know felt the same way about Al-Qaeda and Yemen and so forth. But to Groc Khan's credit, I think we saw, wait a second, I'm not going to go so far. And the idea that anything that Hamas does is self-defense is insane. But let's just leave that aside. It's extraordinary. And in some ways, I actually think it hurts the broader cause for Palestinian rights. I feel it as a diasporate Jew, but I'd imagine for Israelis it's even more so. If you feel that the very legitimacy and existence of Israel is on the line, then you don't really have space to asking critical questions about the conduct of the war. If you think that you're surrounded by people who just want to destroy Israel, you know, either demographically or militarily or terroristically, then, you know, good luck getting American Zionists to then ask questions about, well, you know, was there a better way, or the conditions of prisons under Ben Gavir is a real problem for Israel and is against Jewish values and the abuses are tolerated when they were not before, et cetera? I think Jews in America are constantly in a kind of defensive crouch.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

But let me ask you about this shifting relationship. And you can answer this from the perspective of either the organized Jewish community in America or from the perspective of Israel. When you look back and you think about where we were five years ago, where we are today, were there avoidable mistakes made in managing the relationship with the United States? Did we make unforced errors?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Well, hindsight's always 2020. I would say Israel should have earlier on said we don't need this to be a subsidy. We don't need the aid package. Because the aid package was used by Obama as cover, because it was a time when there was a pro-Israel consensus for trying to ram through what I thought was a horrendous deal with Iran that allowed it to keep its nuclear infrastructure. So let's just start there. Israel's economy was booming, especially if you sort of start counting around 2005 after the second intifada. And that there are good Zionistic reasons for not being so dependent on one ally to subsidize your national defense. I think it allows for more kind of autonomy. And I also think that the relationship at this point doesn't need, you don't need to have the aid package as a sort of reminder that America supported Israel because, you know, the Pentagon wants Israeli tech, the US and military industrial complex, which is far more powerful than AIPAC, is a natural constituency for wanting a good relationship with Israel. Israel is becoming at this point a kind of tech superpower, in many ways a regional military superpower. It doesn't need the subsidy. And I think that it could have been better strategic thinking. The other thing I would say, I don't want to sound like a squish, is that there is a fringe of West Bank settlers who I would call Judeo-fascists that are out of their minds. They're messianic, they're violent, and they do terrible things. And no, no decent person, let alone no Jews, should ever find themselves defending it. The other thing I would say is that there was a cynical political deal that Netanyahu made in 2018 where he allowed for the heirs of Merekahana, their political parties, to be part of the voting bloc with Likud. I understand the short-term gain, he was able to continue to hold on to power, but we're paying the price right now. That breaks a Likud tradition. I mean, the the famous is that when Begin was the prime minister in the 80s, and that there were like two years when Kahana was in the Knesset, every time Kahana would speak, he would leave the Knesset. He thought he had such contempt for him. The spirit of Likud is based in, in my view, small L liberalism. And Kahana is a cult of personality. And I'd say he has a vision of, as again, Judeo-fascism. And there's a huge difference because I think one of the things that Israelis take pride in is that in Israel, there are Arab citizens who have more rights than in any other place in the region. For the first time before this government, we had an Arab party in the ruling coalition. These are things I think every person who loves Israel should say, this is great. And this is the problem is that Bengever will say things, now that he is the minister of national security, that are not government policy, that infuriate most Israelis, that don't represent what Israel's doing, but because he says it, it becomes a PR nightmare. That was on Netanyahu specifically. So those are the areas where I do think care could have been taken.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Last question before we wrap up Do you see a way or pathway where Israel can become a bipartisan consensus once again?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yes, I do. It will require the sane Republicans, which are doing a much better job right now of kicking the Tucker Carlson faction or Katarlson faction out of the party. And it will require younger generation, Z millennial Democrats, to absolutely welcome a fight with the jackals inside the party. I don't think that fight should be raised about Israel. I don't think it should be we like Israel and you don't like Israel, and that's what this is about. They're the ones making it about AIPAC. No, they have to make it bigger. To say, listen, the democratic socialists of America, there is no democratic, they are just socialists. They hate America, they want to destroy our country, they they disrespect our constitution, they want to abolish prisons, they want to abolish the police, and they think that we are guilty for all of the world's sins, and they represent a juvenile and idiotic college professor's view of history. And this is wrong, and this is not who we are as Democrats, it's not who we are as Americans, and get out. And you need to have leaders who are willing to stand up and they're willing to lose, but then fight again. Because I think that sadly this Al-Said's going to win, and there's a good chance that we're going to see this woman in Wisconsin. And the Democrats are then going to be beholden to these absolute lunatics. You really need is to have to have a counter movement. People like Josh Galheimer, Richie Torres, uh, I hope John Fetterman holds on. We're going to need more. And then on the Republican side, you're going to have a big fight. I think that there's a chance you could see that J.D. Vance realizes he he cannot do what he's been doing, which is to try to sort of have everybody come together, and you've got the Tucker faction probably going to have to choose the normal Republicans.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

He's done what I see as a less artful job than Trump of trying to court all sides, sort of tripping all over the place in doing so.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Aaron Powell Yeah, but Trump at this point is now um Well, he comes out and he just tells Tucker Carlson off he's willing to say something. And Megan Kelly and Candace Owens.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, but J.D. Wann seems to be in the earlier iteration of sort of can I have all these people in my camp?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

He wants to say there's good Republicans on both sides. So to speak.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

But I think that there's more of a chance of having the kind of the Republicans for a couple of reasons. One is the anti-Semites have taken over the Democratic Party. So if that's the party of hating the Jews and hating Israel, then it's natural that you would have the opponent to that party be the pro-Israel party. But the other thing is that I just I think there are more institutions within on the right. There's still a bunch of evangelical churches that are like, this is crazy to me. If we were to have this conversation a year ago, Aviva, I think we'd be asking ourselves, well, where are all these people on the right? It was only Ted Cruz, remember, right? Ted Cruz was the one who was willing to call out Tucker Carlson, and that was it in terms of major electeds. Now you're seeing a lot of people willing to do that, and that's good. But at this point, the only way out is through, and the only way to do it is with a fight. I do think that you can have that fight because I do think that their ideas are so bad, and I think that they fundamentally go up against traditional values of the Democratic Party. But it's going to be done by people who are younger than us. So that's that's my hope.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Eli Lake, it is always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Thank you, Aviva. Do the best.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

That's a wrap on today's episode of Boundless Insights. Whether you've been with us from the start or are just discovering our show, we're so glad you're here. If today's conversation sparked a question, challenged your thinking, or made you shake your head, I want to hear from you. Email me at podcast at boundlessisrael.org. Your feedback gives us ideas for new topics and new guests. And if you believe these conversations matter, there are three ways to support the show. First, hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. Second, help us spread the word. Share an episode with friends and family, post about it, or mention it in a group chat. It really does make a difference. And third, consider supporting our work. Boundless is a nonprofit and we rely on donors to keep the show going. You can make a gift at boundlessisrael.org slash donate. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep the conversation going.