US-Israel Disenchantment Predates Gaza War, 2003 Poll Shows

A 2003 European Commission poll found 59 percent of surveyed citizens viewed Israel as a "threat to world peace," with the U.S. ranking second alongside Iran and North Korea — evidence that negative sentiment toward the Jewish state long predates the current conflict.

"The gulf between perception and reality then and now can't be blamed on Mr. Netanyahu, nor TikTok or social media, which did not yet exist," wrote Eli Litman of Kfar Saba, Israel, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Daniel J. Samet of the American Enterprise Institute argued that radical academics like Noam Chomsky and Edward Said smeared Israel as an imperialist aggressor for generations, making this the consensus view on college campuses. He cited unfair media coverage during the 1982 Lebanon war and the Second Intifada as key drivers of left-wing hostility. Democratic politicians responded to this shift: Howard Dean was critical of Israel during his 2000s presidential bid, attendees at the 2012 Democratic National Convention booed an amendment recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigned on explicitly anti-Israel platforms.

The letters challenge William Galston's Aug. 12 op-ed, which attributed the souring of U.S.-Israel ties primarily to the Gaza war and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If disenchantment is structural rather than event-driven, the implications for U.S. foreign policy are significant — bipartisan support for Israel may not recover even after the conflict ends.

The historical record supports the letters' thesis. The 1982 Lebanon war, during which Israeli forces besieged Beirut and were implicated in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, triggered a wave of criticism in Western media that reshaped public perception. The Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005 brought daily images of conflict that further polarized opinion across Europe and North America. These episodes, the letters argue, were not isolated incidents but part of a pattern of coverage that systematically shaped how the left viewed Israel.

On campus, the influence of figures like Chomsky and Said created an intellectual framework that framed Israel as a colonial power. This academic critique migrated into mainstream Democratic politics over two decades. The shift was gradual but measurable: the Democratic Party's 2012 platform initially omitted recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and the convention crowd booed when the amendment was added. By 2020, both Sanders and Warren had made criticism of Israeli policy a central plank of their presidential campaigns. The trajectory from Dean's early-2000s criticism to the 2012 convention booing to the 2020 primary platforms shows a party moving steadily away from its historical posture of near-unconditional support for Israel.

The 2003 European Commission poll provides the starkest data point. Fifty-nine percent of Europeans surveyed viewed Israel as a threat to world peace — a figure that placed the U.S. second, tied with Iran and North Korea. This was before the Gaza war, before social media, and before Netanyahu's current tenure. The poll suggests that European skepticism of Israeli policy was already entrenched two decades ago, well before the current conflict reshaped the debate. It also complicates the narrative that social media platforms like TikTok are the primary drivers of anti-Israel sentiment — the 2003 data predates the existence of these platforms entirely.

What This Means for U.S. Policy

The letters carry implications beyond the opinion pages. If the erosion of support for Israel among American progressives is a decades-long structural trend rather than a reaction to the current war, then the political calculus for both parties has shifted permanently. Democratic presidential candidates now face a base that is increasingly skeptical of unconditional support for Israel, while Republican support has consolidated around the Israeli government.

The divergence has foreign-policy consequences. U.S. aid to Israel has historically enjoyed bipartisan backing, but that consensus is fraying as the Democratic base moves left on the issue. The letters suggest that this is not a temporary reaction to the Gaza war but the culmination of a generational shift in how the American left views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The 2026 midterm elections will test whether the Democratic Party's shift on Israel translates into electoral consequences, and whether Republican efforts to make support for Israel a partisan issue further entrench the divide. For Israel, the strategic implication is clear: the bipartisan foundation of U.S. support, long considered an unshakeable pillar of Israeli foreign policy, is no longer guaranteed.

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