Ahead of a midterm vote that concluded with a decisive rejection of his political style, Donald Trump indicated on the morning of the election that he planned to terminate military assistance to Israel by the close of the year, explaining that, in his words, they do not need it.
The eleventh-hour proposal drew immediate condemnation across the political spectrum. Pro-Palestinian advocates dismissed the maneuver as desperate, while pro-Israel organizations condemned it as unserious.
Trump’s alternative suggestion—to replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with direct arms sales—signaled that little would change in practice, ensuring funding would continue through harder-to-track channels. Yet the statement served as a notable acknowledgment from the president regarding how severely public support for Israel has eroded against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza. That conflict has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, been widely described as a genocide, and fundamentally reshaped American politics in ways unthinkable just three years ago.
President Trump’s announcement on Fox & Friends that he will end a 10-year security commitment to Israel two years early, with no details and no plan before Congress, captures everything unserious about this administration’s approach to the world. 🧵 1/7
Shifts in the House and the Senate
When the new US House convenes in January, its roster will include an army doctor who completed a medical mission in Gaza, a lawyer who was fired by her firm over a blog post criticizing Israel’s military campaign, and a Jewish lawmaker recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank. It will also welcome a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestine student encampment and secured a primary season upset under the banner of babies, not bombs.
Pro-Palestinian candidates, including several Palestinian-Americans, notched victories downballot. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed made history by becoming the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. His campaign weathered more than $40m spent by Aipac in an effort to defeat him, last-minute political drama, and unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry.
‼️ The GOP increased its share of the Jewish vote by 10 percentage points, while Democrats saw 11-point drop compared to the 2024 exit poll. https://t.co/hDCDpLEhiV pic.twitter.com/cmH27Mo42i
Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, noted the shift in politics. The old bipartisan consensus on Israel is over, she said.
Without that traditional consensus in place, the incoming Congress could pursue several measures, ranging from an arms embargo on Israel to sanctions targeting violent settlers and officials. However, Trump would retain veto power to block any such legislation.
The Domestic Toll of Foreign Policy
The election outcome also registered as a rejection of Trump’s war in Iran, a reality that JD Vance acknowledged as obvious to almost everyone. Foreign policy issues rarely dictate the outcome of US elections unless those conflicts directly impact Americans at home.
According to Yousef Munayyer, who directs the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, citizens were reminded of the Iran conflict’s drawbacks during every stop at the supermarket and petrol station, with Israel continuing to occupy a pivotal role in that narrative.
Throughout the country and across the ballot, unabashedly pro-Palestinian candidates defeated pro-Israel opponents despite Aipac pouring tens of millions of dollars into a failed attempt to reverse Israel’s collapsing standing among American voters. Last month, Aipac acknowledged that its open financial support was hurting pro-Israel candidates rather than helping them, prompting an announcement that the group would stop making direct endorsements and contributions—a remarkable admission, even if it carried little practical consequence.
The triumph of El-Sayed and other figures whom conservative critics attempted to brand as antisemitic because of their backing for Palestinians additionally signified a profound repudiation of the viewpoint pushed by Israel’s advocates and the Trump administration over the preceding three years: namely, that any objection to Israel inherently constitutes antisemitism.
“They try to call you hateful if you believe that Palestinian kids should get to grow up in the land of their forefathers without being murdered by our tax dollars,” El-Sayed said during his acceptance speech, maintaining his plain-spoken support for Palestinians despite intense political pressure. If you believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self determination, that’s not hate, it’s love.
Exit Polls Show El-Sayed Winning Jewish Voters
Exit polls in Michigan indicated that El-Sayed won a majority of Jewish voters. Despite warnings that Jewish voters would abandon the Democratic party en masse over its policy shifts regarding Israel, polling from J Street found that 72% of Jews voted for Democrats on Tuesday, even as the Republican party managed to increase its share of the Jewish vote compared to 2024.
According to our 2026 Election Survey of Jewish voters, 72% of American Jews voted Democrat last night. There was no exodus. We'll have deeper results at our briefing tomorrow at 1 PM ET – RSVP here: https://t.co/FpZZe4mAOm pic.twitter.com/8Qy8e4jk3K
This political shift does not signal complete unity within the Democratic party regarding Israel, Palestine, or foreign wars. For decades, the party has excluded or marginalized anyone whose progressive values extend to support for Palestine, said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. American voters, organizers, and a cohort of enormously talented candidates came together and kicked the door down.
Matt Duss, who serves as executive vice-president at the Center for International Policy and previously worked as a foreign policy advisor for Senator Bernie Sanders, contended that Democrats now have a vital chance to establish themselves as the definitive anti-war political force.
Observing that Trump campaigned successfully on an anti-war platform two years prior simply because Democrats failed to contest that territory, Duss noted, Trump ran and won as an anti-war candidate in 2024, because unfortunately Democrats left that lane wide open for him.
The question is: Will Democrats finally get it? Will they finally realize that Americans are tired of war and want a new foreign policy?
