By Ben Emos & Don Terry | Sunday June 28 2026 | 5 min read
Netanyahu didn’t just cultivate influence in the United States — he dominated it. For years, he operated as if Washington were an extension of his own political stage. He even brushed past President Obama to address Congress directly, a move that showed just how deeply he believed his power reached into American politics.
But that era is cracking apart. The past week didn’t just bruise his image — it exposed how fragile his standing has become. In Israel, his support is eroding. In Washington, the shine has worn off. And the politicians who once treated unwavering loyalty to Netanyahu as a guaranteed path to victory are suddenly losing primaries in places where that strategy used to be automatic.
The aura of inevitability he spent decades building is breaking down, and the political machine that once protected him is no longer firing on command.
The shift is unmistakable. And for Netanyahu, it arrives at a moment when he can least afford it.
In Israel, the political ground beneath him is cracking. When US President Donald Trump said it was “an open question” whether Netanyahu even wants to continue his political career, it wasn’t just a stray remark. It was a public signal from a former ally who once embraced Netanyahu as a partner in reshaping Middle East policy. Trump’s comment landed just as a new poll showed more than 60 percent of Israelis do not want the 76‑year‑old prime minister to run in the upcoming Knesset election. Likud insists he will run, and Netanyahu himself has shown no sign of stepping aside, but the mood in Israel is unmistakably sour.
Many Israelis blame him for the strategic failures that preceded Hamas’s October 7 attack. Others accuse him of dividing the country, undermining democratic institutions, and dragging Israel into a cycle of corruption scandals and political brinkmanship. His leadership — once seen as steady, even inevitable — is now the central fault line in Israeli politics.
But the tremors are not confined to Israel. They are being felt in the United States, where Netanyahu’s influence has long been woven into the fabric of bipartisan politics. That fabric is now tearing.
Trump’s description of Netanyahu as a “con man” in the book Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan was more than a personal insult. It was a message to Republicans that the old political reflex — support Netanyahu, support Israel, and reap the rewards — is no longer a guaranteed formula. Trump’s own break with Netanyahu came after the disastrous US‑Israeli assault on Iran, but Democrats have been sounding alarms for months about the war in Gaza and the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding there.
This week, those warnings turned into electoral consequences.
In America’s most heavily Jewish city, progressive candidates who ran hard against the war in Gaza swept three congressional primaries. Their victories weren’t narrow or ambiguous. They were decisive — and they were built on a message that would have been politically unthinkable a decade ago: harsh criticism of Israel is not only survivable, it can be a winning strategy.
Brad Lander, a former city comptroller, defeated Rep. Dan Goldman in a race defined by their opposing stances on Israel. Lander, who describes himself as a “liberal Zionist,” hammered Goldman for refusing to call Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide and for opposing legislation to block arms sales. In another race, democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier toppled Rep. Adriano Espaillat after relentlessly attacking him for accepting donations from AIPAC. And Claire Valdez, also a democratic socialist, is poised to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez after criticizing her opponent for hesitating to use the term “genocide” and for ties to AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project.
These results paint a stark picture: the Democratic Party is undergoing a rapid realignment on Israel, and Netanyahu’s once‑formidable influence is slipping.
“In a Democratic primary, the people who are against the war in Gaza have a massive political advantage in 2026,” said Jon Paul Lupo, a longtime strategist in New York. His assessment reflects a broader trend — one that has been building for years but accelerated dramatically as the war in Gaza intensified.
The victories also pose a challenge for Democratic leaders like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. They must now navigate a fractured coalition: older Jewish voters who have long supported Israel, and a younger generation of progressives who view Netanyahu’s government as emblematic of injustice and militarism.
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“This signals a substantial shift in policy toward Israel,” said strategist Basil Smikle. And he’s right. The political map is changing. The assumptions that once governed American politics — that support for Israel was a bipartisan prerequisite — are no longer reliable.
Netanyahu’s grip on American politics isn’t just weakening — it’s cracking in full view. The candidates who spent years echoing his talking points are getting wiped out in primaries, and the once‑reliable Washington coalition that shielded him is breaking apart piece by piece. The old playbook is dead, and the people who kept running it are finally being forced to confront reality.
Whether Bill Maher or anyone else in that media bubble wants to acknowledge this shift is their problem. The public has moved on. Fans are done watching commentators hide behind the same tired shield — pretending that any criticism of Netanyahu is somehow antisemitic. That tactic doesn’t work anymore. People see through it, and they’re refusing to be guilt‑tripped into silence.
The political winds have changed, and the voices that once defended Netanyahu without question are now the ones looking out of step. If they don’t adjust, they’ll be left behind by an audience that’s no longer willing to accept excuses for policies and actions they find indefensible.
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