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June 4, 2025, 2:59 PM View Comments ()

Israelis are chronically anxious about their one day being left isolated. A tiny country heavily reliant on foreign trade and investment, and believing itself to be a part of the family of Western democracies, Israel would be far less able than countries like Iran and Russia to cope economically, militarily, and psychologically with sanctions and global disapprobation.

Those fears have never materialized, but in the past two weeks, the threat has become more tangible than ever. The proximate cause is Israel’s decision to renew its assault on the Gaza Strip and block humanitarian aid. But behind that are longer-term developments that do not bode well for Israel.

The most concrete threat has come from Europe. The European Union said on May 20 it would review its association agreement with Israel that, among other things, covers free trade arrangements (FTAs). The same day, Britain suspended talks with Israel on its bilateral FTA. Some European nations have either stopped supplying weapons or have suspended export licenses, and Spain last month called for a general arms embargo on Israel. A host of countries, including Germany and other traditional friends of Israel, have issued statements unusually critical of the renewed war in Gaza.

On paper, the United States remains as committed to Israel as ever, and arms deliveries are flowing uninterrupted. But, in practice, Israel has found itself consistently on the wrong side of the Trump administration’s Middle East priorities. In Iran, U.S. President Donald Trump opted for negotiations over attacking nuclear facilities, as Israel preferred; in Syria, Trump has ignored Israeli fears and is dropping sanctions and reopening the U.S. ambassador’s residence; and with the Houthis, the administration reached a truce that left Israel to fight them alone.

Perhaps most importantly, the president’s high-profile visit to the Gulf signaled where his interests in the region lie—in doing business deals and avoiding the military confrontations Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems so intent on pursuing.

None of this so far adds up to anything close to impending isolation for Israel. For instance, for the EU review to lead to any concrete steps, a majority of countries would have to agree, which is unlikely for now. An arms embargo would be meaningless unless it was joined by the United States, which—together with Germany—supplies much of Israel’s imported weapons. (That said, Spain on June 3 said it was canceling a 285-million-euro arms deal, helping make good on creating a “disconnection” from Israel on security matters.) Britain has frozen FTA negotiations, but its existing trade agreement with Israel remains in force.

If Israel ends the war in Gaza anytime soon, which is by no means a given, the immediate threat of isolation it faces is likely to be lifted, albeit with its international standing further diminished. But the long-term trends that have put Israel at such risk remain.

The first of these is public opinion in the United States and Europe. Americans remain more sympathetic to Israelis than to Palestinians, according to polling by Gallup, but the gap has been narrowing over the past decade. In February, when Gallup did its last poll, the ratio was 46 percent to 33 percent in Israel’s favor, not the kind of thumping majority a country so dependent on American support needs.

Across Europe, Israel is now viewed unfavorably by the public, including in Germany, normally among Israel’s most reliable supporters. According to a Bertelsmann Stiftung poll taken earlier this year, only 36 percent of Germans said they viewed Israel positively, versus 38 percent who took a negative view. Only four years earlier, the same poll found that 46 percent of Germans had a positive opinion of Israel. The enormous death and destruction caused by the Gaza war, amplified by intense media coverage and widespread street protests in the United States and Europe, have harmed Israel’s standing in the eyes of the public. But Israel has a deeper problem that won’t go away with the end of the fighting: Younger people see Israel-Palestine through the lens of racial politics and the legacy of European colonialism, and that automatically puts Israel at a moral disadvantage. Not surprisingly, a Pew poll from last year found that among 18- to 29-year-old Americans, more than twice as many expressed sympathy for Palestinians as for Israelis.

Poll numbers inevitably influence elected leaders, who then feel the need to speak out and perhaps even act. But their impact shouldn’t be overstated, because for the vast majority of voters, Israel-Palestine isn’t a decisive issue. Where Israel is crucially losing the battle for diplomatic support in the West is among the elite—the media, the universities, the nongovernmental organizations, and government officials, one example being the EU Staff for Peace. As members of the younger generation move into positions of power, their worldview will become even more predominant among opinion leaders.

The second trend working against Israel is the changing dynamics of the Middle East. Israel has been largely shielded from government action by the West because it has been seen as an important ally in defending its regional interests, whether it was confronting Iran, helping prop up moderate regimes, or supplying valuable intelligence.

But as has become increasingly clear over the first few months of Trump’s second term, many of the old verities of American policy are being abandoned. As the president himself put it during his tour of the Gulf, “Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past, and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together—not bombing each other out of existence.”

That is not quite how Israel (or at least the Netanyahu government) sees the Middle East. It still regards Iran as a menace bent on dominating the region and Israel’s destruction, Syria as led by unrepentant jihadists, and Hamas and Hezbollah as undefeated. Diplomacy and trade deals are irrelevant; these challenges can only be addressed by the kind of continuous and proactive military action Israel is undertaking in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza—and would in Iran, given a chance by Washington.

Israel may prove to be right in the long run, but in the short run, its role as regional police officer has been diminished. Israel’s hawkish stance risks disrupting the diplomacy Trump is pursuing. And, if Israel is less of a strategic asset—and perhaps even a liability—Washington will have less interest in shielding it against any punitive measures taken by Europe. It may even take a few measures of its own, most likely (given Trump’s dislike of foreign aid) a sizable cut in the annual aid package it gets when the current framework expires in 2028.

By themselves, these first two trends would not be enough to put Israel at very serious risk of isolation. The problem is that Israel itself is not capable right now of fundamentally addressing them.

On the margins, Israel has sought to assuage its critics, most notably by restoring a limited amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza. But its basic response has been to chide the Europeans as being effectively pro-terror, on the wrong side of history, and even antisemitic.

The most obvious reason is that Israel is led by a far-right and religious government. Many of its most powerful members dismiss Europe as hopelessly anti-Israel and do not believe that anything Israel does will change that. Their respect for the United States is limited to Trump and the Republican Party, but even that is being tested today, with the White House opposing Israel on Iran and, worst of all, pressing it to end the war in Gaza. For the far right, the conquest of Gaza, with the aim of restoring Israeli settlements there, is a holy grail, a cause just short of annexing the West Bank. Sacrificing a trade agreement or research cooperation with Europe is well worth it. Rather than playing down the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, they revel in vows to level the enclave, expel its inhabitants, and deny them food and medicine.

Where Netanyahu himself stands on this Make Israel Great Again ideology is unclear. Traditionally, he has been a pragmatist who usually knew how far he could test the patience of Israel’s friends. Today, however, he is a captive of his extremist coalition partners, whom he fears will bring down his government and perhaps end his political career. For him, remaining in power is the holy grail.

The great majority of Israelis see themselves as part of the liberal West, politically, economically, and culturally. Polls show most want to reach a deal to free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas and end the war in Gaza. But two caveats come with this. One is that the government doesn’t concern itself with the will of the voters, only the will of its base, which remains pro-war. The other is that even Israelis with doubts about the government’s policy are hesitant to openly oppose it while their loved ones are risking their lives in Gaza, which probably explains why anti-war protests haven’t gained any traction. The trauma of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack inures many to criticism by foreigners, even ones they would ordinarily regard as friends.

The only event likely to change Israel’s course is the fall of the Netanyahu government and its replacement by a more moderate coalition. Polls of voters say that if elections were held now, that would likely be the result. But Netanyahu and his allies are determined to hold onto power as long as possible. If they get their way, the downward trajectory in Israel’s international standing may be irreversible even with a more moderate leadership.