U.S.-Israel Partnership

Opposition to Israel and Antisemitism in the United States

The U.S.-Israel relationship rests on decades of close security cooperation, intelligence sharing, missile-defense and counter-tunnel programs, technological cooperation, and overlapping interests in deterring Iran and other regional threats. These strategic advantages do not translate into uniform public support. Public attitudes are shaped not only by judgments about national interest, but also by ideology, political identity, media exposure, humanitarian concerns, historical prejudice, and, in some cases, foreign influence efforts.¹

Main domestic sources

Recent data show both a sharp increase in recorded antisemitic incidents after October 7, 2023, and a marked deterioration in American attitudes toward Israel. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest annual total in its series, with 58 percent containing elements related to Israel or Zionism. The total declined to 6,274 in 2025, but remained far above pre-October 7 levels. ADL's audit includes both criminal and noncriminal incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault, so its totals should not be read as a count of hate crimes.²

Public opinion has also shifted substantially. In a March 2026 Pew Research Center survey, 60 percent of U.S. adults held an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53 percent in 2025 and 42 percent in 2022. Negative views were especially common among Democrats and younger adults, although unfavorable views had also risen among Republicans under age 50.³

Key domestic drivers include:

• Progressive and postcolonial frameworks: Some activists interpret the Israeli-Palestinian conflict primarily through settler-colonial or oppressor-oppressed frameworks, viewing Israel as the more powerful state and Palestinians as a dispossessed population. This perspective is not inherently antisemitic. It crosses that line when criticism of Israeli policy becomes collective blame of Jews, invokes traditional antisemitic stereotypes, or treats Jewish national self-determination as uniquely illegitimate.
• Far-right and isolationist currents: Traditional antisemitic conspiracy theories concerning supposed Jewish control of finance, media, or government remain visible in some online and political circles. Separately, noninterventionist and "America First" arguments sometimes portray support for Israel as an unnecessary foreign entanglement. The phrase "America first" has a long history: Woodrow Wilson used it prominently in 1915 while defending U.S. neutrality in World War I, but the organized America First movement associated with isolationism developed later.⁴

• Religious and community differences: Views of the conflict vary substantially among religious communities. Pew polling in 2024 found that 64 percent of Muslim Americans sympathized entirely or mostly with Palestinians, compared with 16 percent of U.S. adults overall. At the same time, 58 percent of Muslim Americans viewed Hamas unfavorably. Such differences help explain changing political coalitions, but they should not by themselves be treated as evidence of antisemitism or foreign influence.⁵
• Media and social dynamics: Graphic coverage of civilian casualties, highly compressed social-media narratives, and algorithmic amplification of emotionally charged material can intensify polarization. Anti-Zionist arguments sometimes blend with classic antisemitic tropes, while accusations of antisemitism can also be applied too broadly to ordinary policy criticism. Precision in language is therefore essential.

Genuine disagreement over Israeli military operations, settlements, civilian casualties, humanitarian access, and the proper extent of U.S. support exists within both Israel and the United States. Such disagreement is a normal feature of liberal democracy. The analytical problem begins when criticism of a government becomes collective hostility toward Jews as Jews, when Jewish peoplehood is denied, a legitimacy routinely granted to other peoples, or when political rhetoric explicitly endorses violence or the destruction of Israel.

Eliminationist rhetoric is public speech or political discourse that portrays an opponent or group not merely as mistaken or defeatable, but as an entity whose continued existence is intolerable and must be removed or destroyed. That term should be used narrowly. It properly applies to movements whose declared political or military objectives include the destruction or replacement of the State of Israel, including Hamas, which the United States designates as a foreign terrorist organization.⁶

Role of foreign influence, funding, and external interests

Foreign actors have sought to exploit existing American divisions concerning Israel and the Middle East. The evidence is strongest when the mechanisms are identified precisely. Iranian influence operations, Qatari financial relationships with U.S. institutions, and broader Russian and Chinese information operations are distinct phenomena and should not be treated as though they are one coordinated campaign.

Qatari university funding and Iranian influence are among the most readily documented examples:

• Qatar and higher education: Federal disclosure data show that Qatar is one of the largest foreign sources of reportable gifts and contracts to American colleges and universities. For 2025, the U.S. Department of Education reported more than $1.1 billion in gifts and contracts from Qatari sources, the largest country total reported for that year. These figures include both gifts and contracts and therefore should not be described simply as donations or treated, by themselves, as proof of ideological influence.⁷
• Qatar and Hamas: Qatar has long hosted a political office of Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. At the same time, successive U.S. administrations have used Qatar as an intermediary in negotiations with Hamas, including hostage and cease-fire diplomacy. Qatar's relationship with Hamas is therefore a legitimate subject of scrutiny, but it is more complex than a simple sponsor-client description.⁸
• Iranian influence operations: Iran supports armed groups hostile to Israel and conducts propaganda and influence operations abroad. In July 2024, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated that Iranian government-linked actors had posed as activists online, sought to encourage Gaza-related protests in the United States, and in some cases provided financial support to protesters. Haines simultaneously emphasized that Americans participating in protests were generally expressing their views in good faith and might be unaware of foreign involvement.⁹

Research on foreign funding and campus political climate deserves attention, but the causal claim should remain limited. A 2024 peer-reviewed study in Frontiers in Social Psychology reported associations between funding from authoritarian or Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries and some measures of campus antisemitism, anti-Zionist incidents, and restrictions on academic speech. The authors described the findings as evidence of relationships warranting further investigation, not proof that foreign money directly caused particular protests, slogans, faculty views, or incidents.¹⁰

Competitive authoritarian powers also benefit from American polarization. U.S. intelligence assessments have repeatedly identified Russia, China, and Iran as actors seeking, to differing degrees and through different methods, to amplify divisive narratives and exploit social tensions in the United States. Intelligence reporting in 2024 specifically noted Iranian efforts to exacerbate tensions over the Israel-Gaza conflict and broader Russian and Chinese efforts to manipulate or magnify U.S. political divisions.¹¹

The influence question is therefore best framed cautiously: foreign governments do not need to create an American grievance in order to exploit it. Money, media, online personas, institutional relationships, and information operations can amplify divisions that already exist. Demonstrating such amplification is easier than proving that a particular donor, government, or intelligence service caused a specific American belief or protest.

Qatar also illustrates the tension between strategic cooperation and ideological difference. It is an important U.S. security partner and hosts major U.S. military facilities, yet its domestic political system is authoritarian. Freedom House's 2026 Freedom in the World assessment gives Qatar a score of 25/100 and classifies it as "Not Free." That contrast is relevant when evaluating the soft-power influence of authoritarian states in American institutions, but it does not establish that recipients of Qatari funding adopt Qatari political views.¹²

Overall assessment

Opposition to a strong U.S.-Israel partnership is not monolithic. Much of it reflects legitimate disagreement over Israeli policy, civilian casualties, settlements, the conduct of war, humanitarian concerns, or the appropriate extent of American involvement abroad. Another portion crosses into rejection of Jewish national self-determination, traditional antisemitic stereotypes, or explicit eliminationist rhetoric. A further dimension involves documented attempts by foreign actors, particularly Iran, to exploit existing American divisions.

Qatar's large financial relationship with American higher education warrants transparency and scrutiny, and peer-reviewed research has identified correlations between certain foreign funding streams and adverse campus outcomes. Those correlations, however, are not sufficient to prove that Qatar or any other foreign donor caused individual demonstrations, faculty positions, or antisemitic incidents. The stronger argument is that foreign money and influence can shape institutional environments and amplify narratives, while domestic ideological, political, and humanitarian concerns remain independently important.

The strategic logic for close U.S.-Israel cooperation remains strong in security, defense technology, intelligence, and regional deterrence. Public and campus attitudes have nevertheless shifted because of a mixture of war imagery, genuine policy disagreement, ideological change, enduring antisemitic prejudice, generational and community differences, social-media dynamics, and deliberate foreign influence efforts. Distinguishing among those causes is essential. It makes the case for the partnership more credible because it relies on documented evidence rather than assuming that all opposition arises from the same source.

Sources and Footnotes

1. Jim Zanotti, Israel: Major Issues and U.S. Relations, CRS Report R44245 (Congressional Research Service, updated Dec. 5, 2024), Congressional Research Service PDF. ↩
2. Anti-Defamation League, Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2024 (Apr. 22, 2025), 2024 audit; ADL, Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2025 (May 6, 2026), 2025 audit. ↩
3. Pew Research Center, “Negative views of Israel, Netanyahu continue to rise among Americans, especially young people,” Apr. 7, 2026, Pew Research Center. ↩
4. Woodrow Wilson, “Address at the Associated Press Luncheon in New York City,” Apr. 20, 1915, The American Presidency Project, transcript. ↩
5. Besheer Mohamed, “How U.S. Muslims are experiencing the Israel-Hamas war,” Pew Research Center, Apr. 2, 2024, Pew Research Center. ↩
6. Congressional Research Service, Israel and Hamas October 2023 Conflict: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), R47754 (updated Oct. 20, 2023), CRS report. ↩
7. U.S. Department of Education, “U.S. Department of Education Releases Latest Foreign Funding Disclosures from Federally-Funded American Universities,” Feb. 11, 2026, Department of Education. ↩
8. Christopher M. Blanchard, Qatar: Issues for the 119th Congress, CRS Report R47467 (Congressional Research Service, updated Mar. 13, 2025), Congress.gov. ↩
9. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Statement from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Recent Iranian Influence Efforts,” July 9, 2024, ODNI statement. ↩
10. Michael Bass et al., “Foreign funding of U.S. higher education relates to sanctioning of scholars and antisemitism,” Frontiers in Social Psychology 2 (Nov. 7, 2024): 1408913, DOI. ↩
11. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Election Security Update, early July 2024, ODNI PDF. ↩
12. Freedom House, “Qatar: Freedom in the World 2026 Country Report,” Freedom House. ↩