President Donald Trump has used a White House Hannukah celebration to highlight the Israel lobby’s reduced influence as a result of US public opinion, including young Evangelicals, increasingly questioning the perceived communality of American and Israeli national interests and turning critical of Israel’s Gaza war conduct.
In a twist of irony, the influence of the primary pro-Israel lobbying institution, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC, and mainstream Jewish American organisations, has also declined because of Mr. Trump’s populism that has polarised America by targeting legacy institutions who traditionally favoured a more consensual political and media landscape.
That landscape is further ripped apart by the war between the pro- and anti-Israel Make America Great Again factions.