In about two and a half years, a new president will enter the White House. It is too early to know whether it will be Republican or Democrat, but one thing is already clear: US-Israel relations will not return to what we once knew. The unconditional support and the assumption that Washington will stand by any Israeli government, regardless of its policies, are already fading—a process that will almost certainly accelerate in the next administration.
If the next president is a Democrat, they will come from a very different party than the one that brought Joe Biden to the White House, and they will be elected by a changing Democratic electorate—more critical of and less unconditionally committed to Israel. According to a Pew survey from April 2026, eight out of ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold a negative opinion of Israel. In a Gallup poll from February 2026, the percentage of Democrats who expressed a positive view of Palestinians was 65 percent, compared to only 17 percent who expressed a positive view of Israel.
But all this data does not mean that the next president will be detrimental for the state of Israel. On the contrary, instead of fearing him or her, we should hope that a president will be elected who will not only appreciate our alliance but also help us get out of our predicament. A president whose actions will help Israel make the decisions that will allow us to reconnect with the American public and the younger generation of the Jewish community, in contrast to the current situation.
An article published a few days ago in The New Yorker, based on conversations with senior officials in the Biden administration, serves as a kind of confession by the former administration’s top officials for failing to stand firmly against the Netanyahu government during the Gaza war. A series of senior officials who were interviewed for the article admit that time and again they failed to apply pressure on the Israeli prime minister and his coalition and to set red lines. They waited for Netanyahu’s agreement on a hostage deal while continuing to provide his government with weapons, political backing, and protection from the consequences of its actions.
President Biden and his administration believed that the way to influence Israel was through private conversations. In practice, Netanyahu and his government learned that Biden’s warnings had no real significance. They could ignore them, surprise the administration repeatedly, sometimes even publicly attack it, and even help Trump get elected—all while knowing that the United States would continue to supply weapons, bear the political cost, and defend Israel in every international forum.
Biden failed to distinguish between supporting the State of Israel and granting total immunity to the Israeli government, although the latter had a clear political agenda in perpetuating the Gaza war, which prevented the release of hostages or the creation of an alternative to Hamas in Gaza. Biden wanted the best for Israel but refused to use American power to prevent the Israeli government from adopting policies that, in his worldview, harmed not only American interests but also Israeli ones.
Any future Democratic president elected by a public whose attitude toward Israel has changed completely will not repeat the mistakes of the past and will not give a blank check to the Israeli government, regardless of its policies. The next Democratic president will make it clear to any Israeli government that American aid is intended to protect Israel from its enemies and not to provide tools to an Israeli government to deepen annexation and prevent a political compromise with the Palestinians. He or she will continue to provide Israel with defensive capabilities against missile attacks, terrorism, and other regional threats but will condition the supply of offensive weapons on their use in accordance with US law. Specifically, the Leahy Law will be enforced, which prohibits security assistance to parties that violate human rights.
And most importantly, unlike Biden, such a president would not be satisfied with merely trying to persuade the Israeli government to act lawfully but would instead present a regional vision that connects the establishment of a Palestinian state, security guarantees for Israel, normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Muslim countries, cooperation against Iran and its proxies, and extensive economic investments throughout the region.
It is precisely this president who will be able to provide Israel with what its governments are currently unable to achieve on their own: a political horizon, renewed international legitimacy, regional integration, and a new pathway for ending the occupation and compromising with the Palestinians, which will ensure our future as a Jewish and democratic state. This will be love, but tough rather than unconditional.
Of course, there will be those who will present this as coercion, perhaps even as ingratitude. But the truth is that when the United States provides the Israeli government with unconditional aid, it is not refraining from intervention; rather, it is subsidizing the continuation of the current situation and allowing the most extreme forces in Israel to lead us all toward the abyss.

Nadav Tamir is the executive director of J Street Israel, a member of the board of the Mitvim think tank, an adviser for international affairs at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, and a member of the steering committee of the Geneva Initiative. He is also a member of Commanders for Israel’s Security. He was an adviser to President Shimon Peres and served in the Israeli embassy in Washington and as consul general to New England.