The war currently waged by Israel and the United States against Iran appears, at first glance, to testify to a deep and strategic alliance between the two countries – an almost ‘intimate bond’, as government spokespeople in Jerusalem are fond of emphasizing. Yet while military coordination remains tight, Israel’s political standing within the American system is eroding at an alarming pace.

In Jerusalem, this danger is still widely dismissed. Many believe the threat to the future of US-Israel relations lies primarily in the fiery rhetoric of the progressive ‘Squad’, or in the predictable talking points of figures like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. But that view misses the larger story. The most striking evidence of the strategic bankruptcy of the Netanyahu era does not come from the progressive fringe of the Democratic Party. It is emerging from its polished mainstream.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and one of the most prominent faces of the Democratic establishment, is no longer the traditional ‘friend of Israel’ who dutifully recites security platitudes prepared by pro-Israel lobbyists. In a recent interview, Newsom-a politician who studies polling data with the same care he gives to his meticulously styled hair-offered a display of cold political realism.

When he declares, with what he describes as a ‘heavy heart’ (in the finest tradition of American political sincerity), that the United States must reconsider its continued military support for Israel, and when he adopts the term ‘apartheid’ as a legitimate description of Israeli policy, he is doing more than expressing an opinion. He is signaling a turning point in the political conversation about Israel in the United States.

The taboo has been broken-not by progressive........

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