How Israel Became America’s Identity Battlefield |
Here is a fact that Israeli readers may not be aware of. In most American elections, foreign policy is barely discussed.
Ukraine, Taiwan, Syria, Greenland, NATO, China. Pick an international issue or crisis. In America, these are issues debated in think tanks not at kitchen tables. American voters are primarily focused on the economy, especially the rising cost of living and financial insecurity in their daily lives. Alongside this, deeply polarizing issues like immigration, crime, and cultural identity debates shape political loyalties and turnout. Foreign policy typically remains low on the totum pole—barely on the political radar screen, unless it becomes tied to domestic identity politics or economic impact.
So here is a newsflash. In this election cycle, the 2024 midterm elections, one small country has become a defining fault line in American politics: Israel.
The question is not why Israel matters. From where I sit it always has. The question is: why now?
Here is a brief political history lesson at a glance. For decades, Israel occupied a rare space in American political life. It commanded broad bipartisan support. Democrats and Republicans alike saw it as a democratic ally, a strategic partner, and—however imperfect—a reflection of shared values. Even during periods of conflict, Israel did not divide Americans along identity lines. It was important, but not personal. A policy issue, not a litmus test.
That changed on October 7, 2023.
The scale and brutality of the Hamas attacks were shocking enough. But what followed—the war in Gaza, the shift in narratives, the college protests—did something more profound. It collapsed the distance between foreign policy and domestic identity.
Almost overnight, Israel was no longer just a country. It became a symbol.
On parts of the American left, Israel was reframed through the language of power and justice. It was cast not as a complex nation-state confronting real security threats, but as a stand-in for global systems (America anyone?) already under critique: colonialism, militarism, and Western dominance. The war in Gaza did not create this framework—but it activated it, plugging Israel into a broader moral narrative that already existed.
This shift has been most pronounced among younger voters and activist communities, where global conflicts are often interpreted through the lens of intersectionality. In this worldview, Israel is no longer evaluated on its own terms. It is placed into a binary: oppressor and oppressed. And here is a critical point to consider: intersectional politics in the United States did not need Israel to thrive.
By 2023, progressives in America already had multiple arenas in which they were fully active: immigration, policing, climate justice, gender and identity, even debates over American global power. The intellectual framework was built. Coalitions were formed. Language was established.
What lacked was a single issue that could fuse all of these elements together into one emotionally immediate and globally visible conflict.
Guess what. Israel became that issue.
Absent October 7, that energy would not have disappeared. It would have been redirected.
Immigration would likely have remained the dominant flashpoint, turning the southern border into a moral and cultural battlefield over who belongs in America. Major ICE incidents, like the ones in Minnesota and Georgia could have reignited the racial justice movement at scale, once again placing systemic inequality at the center of national identity debates.
The war in Ukraine might have fractured more deeply along ideological lines, reframed not simply as a struggle against aggression, but as a referendum on American militarism and global responsibility. Climate change—already a question of justice and inequality—could have intensified as a unifying cause, particularly among younger voters.
Even China and Taiwan, or debates over gender and education, carried the underlying structure of identity conflict.
In other words, the stage was already set.
Intersectionality in 2023 was not waiting for a cause. It was waiting for a catalyst.
For the progressive left, October 7 became that catalyst.
On the American right, a parallel, but very different transformation has taken place.
Israel has become a proxy. A stage upon which America’s internal identity conflicts are being performed. Debates over Israel are, in reality, debates over power, morality, race, nationalism and the future America.
This is why the issue has become so emotionally charged—and so politically useful. This is why, without October 7, it is unlikely that Israel would have become a defining issue in American elections at all.
Absent the attacks and the ensuing war, there would have been no sustained media saturation, no global protest movement at scale, no campus upheaval, and no sustained pressure on American politicians to take sides. Israel would have remained what it had long been: important, but peripheral. Strategic, but not identity-defining.
This raises a deeper—and more uncomfortable—truth. If Israel had not occupied this role, something else would have. Because what America is experiencing is not a crisis of foreign policy. It is a crisis of identity.
In another timeline, Americans would still be shouting past each other, still dividing into moral camps, still turning complex issues into tests of loyalty and virtue. The only difference is that the arguments would be attached to a different “flag,” a different conflict, a different set of images.
Israel did not create this moment. It was absorbed into it. Israel did not cause the fire. October 7 simply gave it oxygen.
The consequences are already visible.
Within the Democratic Party, Israel has become a source of growing internal tension, exposing a widening gap between establishment figures and a younger base. Among Republicans, support for Israel has become an increasingly explicit marker of ideological identity, used to draw contrasts not only with political opponents, but with broader cultural trends.
Candidates are now expected to take clear positions. Nuance is risky. Silence is suspect. What was once a consensus issue has become a test. Just ask any candidate running for office in these midterm elections, or anyone contemplating running for office, who “dares” voice support for Israel.
The tragedy is not only what is unfolding in the Middle East. It is that a conflict thousands of miles away has become a mirror, reflecting the deepest divides within American society itself.