The collapse of support for Israel is not a foreign policy shift—it’s a mirror held up to a changing America.

We are told that Israel has a public relations problem in the United States. This is comforting. It suggests the issue lies somewhere between a poorly worded press release and an unfortunate military operation. It avoids a far less flattering explanation.

For months now, we’ve been treated to a familiar lament: support for Israel in the United States is collapsing. Cue the solemn panel discussions, the think-tank autopsies, and the endless hand-wringing about Israel’s “image problem.” If only Israel would behave a little better, speak a little softer, fight a little less—perhaps the American public would love her again.

It is a comforting story. It is also the wrong one.

The assumption underlying this entire genre of analysis is that America is a fixed moral reference point, a kind of geopolitical North Star by which others are judged. If support is declining, then clearly Israel must have drifted. But what if the opposite is true? What if the variable in this equation is not Israel, but America itself? Yes, declining support poses risks for Israel. That much is obvious. A cooling American public threatens political backing, complicates military coordination, and emboldens enemies who are always delighted to see cracks in Western alliances. These are not trivial concerns. But they are, in a sense, the least interesting part of the story.

Because they assume that America remains what it once........

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