Israel can burn down Palestinian homes, kill innocent civilians, and conduct near-nightly raids in some of the poorest refugee camps in the world, and the U.S. will still support its government with funding and weapons, Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, said last week. 

There were questions about Washington’s position on Israel after the Knesset passed legislation that would limit the country’s Supreme Court’s ability to rule on the “reasonableness” of government decisions.

Biden told Thomas Friedman, the columnist at The New York Times, that the protest movement demonstrates “the vibrancy of Israel’s democracy, which must remain the core of our bilateral relationship.”

Friedman wrote that Biden was essentially saying that if “we are not seen to share that democratic value, it will be difficult to sustain the special relationship that Israel and America have enjoyed for the last 75 years for another 75 years.”

AntiWar.com, citing a Pentagon readout of the call, reported that Austin spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, by phone on Tuesday, after Biden’s comments to the paper.

“Secretary Austin made clear that US commitment to Israel’s security is steadfast and unwavering, and affirmed that the Department of Defense is focused on initiatives that deepen military cooperation,” the readout said.

The U.S. provides Israel with nearly $4 billion in annual military aid.

In 2022, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said “If this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be our commitment to our aid—I don’t even call it our aid—our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”

TREND FORECAST: While the United States says Israel is not an apartheid state, most of the facts prove it is:

● “ISRAEL ACCUSED OF APARTHEID BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH” (4 May 2021)

● “AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: ISRAEL’S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS AMOUNTS TO APARTHEID” (8 Feb 2022)

● “APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL CLAMPING DOWN ON PALESTINIANS” (26 Apr 2022)

● “ISRAEL RAIDS AND RANSACKS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS AND CHURCH” (23 Aug 2022)

● “ISRAEL: BOMBS AWAY OVER SYRIA, BUT LOOK THE OTHER WAY BECAUSE IT’S NOT UKRAINE” (13 Sep 2022) 

● “UN COMMITTEE TO ISRAEL: STOP STEALING PALESTINIAN LAND” (15 Nov 2022)

● “UN TAKES TO RULE ON ISRAEL SETTLEMENTS OF PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES” (10 Jan 2023) 

● “MIDDLE EAST MELTDOWN: ISRAELI AIR RAIDS TARGETS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN SYRIA” (2 May 2023) 

TRENDPOST: As we’ve seen with the U.S.’s unrelenting support of Ukraine, Washington is willing to overlook a lot if it means it can keep a major adversary in check. Israel is the U.S.’s Ukraine in the Middle East that helps keep Iran at bay. (See “MIDDLE EAST MELTDOWN: ISRAEL BOMBS SECRET IRANIAN FACTORIES IN SYRIA: REPORT” 6 Jun 2023, “ISRAEL WARNS THAT ATTACK ON IRAN MAY BE IMMINENT OVER NUCLEAR ADVANCEMENTS” 30 May 2023, and “ISRAEL PUSHING U.S. TO FIGHT IRAN” 18 Apr 2023.) 

While politicians in Washington have maintained their love affair with Israel, the feeling among Americans has shifted. A recent Gallup poll found that, for the first time, Democrats’ sympathies lie more with Palestinians than Israelis by a margin of 49 percent to 38 percent. The survey found that sympathy toward Palestinians among U.S. adults is at a new high of 31 percent, Time magazine reported. 

Yousef Munayyer, a senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., and an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told the magazine that “policymaking is not just about public opinion.”

“In the United States in particular, it’s about elections, it’s about interest groups, and it’s also about American geopolitical interests. And all those things coming together have made it easier for American policymakers to hold on to the old pro-Israel policies than to be responsive to a base that is increasingly calling for change,” he said.