{"id":492394,"date":"2026-06-14T13:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/492394\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T13:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:48:12","slug":"perception-and-the-erosion-of-israels-washington-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/492394\/","title":{"rendered":"Perception and the erosion of Israel\u2019s Washington advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent disclosures of US President Donald Trump<\/a> reprimanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which came near the release of a Pew Research Center survey showing that two-thirds of respondents across 36 countries hold an unfavorable view of Israel, reminded me of an experience from the beginning of my career as an Israeli diplomat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The experience ended in Vienna in 1990 but began in Washington several years earlier. It connects these developments, and points to a third issue, whose scope and consequences for Israel are difficult to foresee.<\/p>\n

In 1985, after completing the Foreign Ministry\u2019s cadet course, I was posted to Washington. Two diplomats at the embassy were responsible for relations with Congress: one senior official and one junior officer \u2013 me. Like the embassy\u2019s other departments, we benefited from a highly efficient and well-oiled support network.<\/p>\n

It included players such as the IDF mission, representatives of Israel\u2019s defense industries, and local organizations, foremost among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). At the time, AIPAC would announce at its annual conference the names of the many Democratic and Republican lawmakers who had accepted its invitation and attended.<\/p>\n

\"USUS President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a press conference after meeting at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025. (credit: REUTERS\/JONATHAN ERNST)<\/p>\n

Thus, the organization publicly demonstrated its reach, while reinforcing the message that support for Israel was a bipartisan consensus.<\/p>\n

Everyone in Washington knew that Israel possessed a rare ability to achieve results. Quite a few countries sought closer ties with Israel because of its standing in the capital of the free world, assuming that good relations with us would help open important local doors. Nor were they the only beneficiaries of the situation \u2013 doors opened for Israel as well.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to mention the Camp David Accords<\/a>, which continue to bring Egypt substantial American assistance, and the Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n

I experienced this personally. Members of Congress who rarely made time for ambassadors were willing to meet with the junior diplomat that I was.<\/p>\n

Representatives of other countries who also worked Capitol Hill, most of them far more senior than I, sought my company and my views. Is a particular bill likely to pass? Will that budget cut really happen? Do you have time for coffee? A reputation for knowledge and influence generates both knowledge and influence.<\/p>\n

It was flattering, but I understood that none of it was personal. Even so, I was surprised a few years later when I joined an Israeli delegation to a conference at the United Nations center in Vienna. A diplomat from a country whose relations with Israel were strained headed her country\u2019s delegation.<\/p>\n

Only a few years earlier we had met frequently in the corridors of Congress and had spoken at length. In Austria, she barely acknowledged my greeting.<\/p>\n

That one blunt moment drove home just how much the attitude towards me and towards my country was shaped by perceptions of the power we were believed to possess at a given moment. In the corridors of the UN, I had no power, and she had no motivation to renew our acquaintance. It was that simple.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s power is not what it was<\/p>\n

Now, when the president of the United States declares that he told Israel\u2019s prime minister that he is \u201ccrazy\u201d and that \u201ceveryone hates Israel because of him,\u201d the whole world hears it. If Trump publicly boasts that \u201che\u2019ll do whatever I tell him,\u201d it is not only Netanyahu\u2019s personal standing that suffers. The message is clear: Israel\u2019s power in Washington is not what it was.<\/p>\n

One might argue that Trump has only two and a half years left in the White House<\/a>, and that as long as Congress remains supportive, Israel\u2019s position is secure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the prime minister\u2019s overt preference for Republicans (illustrated by his 2015 address to Congress, opposing the nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by President Obama) helped damage the bipartisan consensus on Israel. In the past decade, AIPAC has stopped publishing the names of lawmakers attending its annual show of strength.<\/p>\n

During the tenure of the current Israeli government, support among Democrats has continued to erode, and signs of slippage are increasingly visible among Republicans.<\/p>\n

Israel still enjoys substantial support throughout the American political system, and AIPAC<\/a> remains an influential player in both parties. However, all the indicators point toward erosion, and as I learned from that uncomfortable encounter in Vienna, power and the perception of power are inseparable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, beyond the direct deterioration of attitudes toward Israel in many countries, Israel is also losing the advantage that comes from being perceived as exceptionally influential in Washington, as one setback leads to another.<\/p>\n

The writer was Israel\u2019s first ambassador to the Baltic states after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, ambassador to South Africa, and congressional liaison officer at the embassy in Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recent disclosures of US President Donald Trump reprimanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which came near the release of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[83,83118,49,54,18263,85,46,43,58696],"class_list":["post-492394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-abraham-accords","tag-aipac","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-ministry","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-pew-research-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}