Democratic Sweep in Midterms Starts Clock on Iran War and Strains US-Israel Ties

The results of Tuesday's Congressional midterm elections point to a brewing crisis in Israel's relationship with the United States, especially if Jerusalem stays on its current course under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a figure many Democrats openly revile.

Until this week, the warning signs could be downplayed because of Netanyahu's apparently warm ties with President Donald Trump, who still controls the White House and holds veto power over any anti-Israel legislation. But election day opened with Trump announcing that US aid to Israel would abruptly end at the end of the year, and closed with what was described as a blue tsunami of Democratic victories that the president himself attributed to domestic anger over the fallout from the Iran war he launched jointly with Israel, including the price spikes it caused. Vice President JD Vance went further, naming both the Iran war and the close relationship with Israel as two of the four reasons voters handed Democrats the House and Senate. Trump signaled he agreed, though he maintained the war was necessary to prevent a nuclear Iran.

Democrats' first priority is ending the war in Iran, even before introducing already drafted legislation to sanction Israel over its West Bank or Gaza policies. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the presumed next Senate majority leader, said his party would use the legislature's power of the purse, possibly reviving the playbook Congress used to end the Vietnam War by attaching a provision to the next continuing resolution that bars funding for US combat operations off Iran's shores. Trump could refuse to sign it, but that would risk a government shutdown for which he would likely be blamed. The midterm results therefore likely started a countdown for Trump to wind down the war before the next Congress is sworn in on January 3, though the Democratic wins may also have emboldened Tehran to reject compromises, raising the price of any diplomatic exit.

Even if Trump's announcement about ending military aid proves mistaken, and the existing memorandum of understanding remains in place through 2028 as scheduled, Congress still allocates the money each year and could end the $3.8 billion annual package in 2027. Joel Braunold, managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, suggested lawmakers could redirect leftover funds to the Office of the US Security Coordinator in Jerusalem, which promotes cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and helps combat settler violence. Braunold also predicted Congress will investigate rather than fund the Trump-chaired Board of Peace tasked with overseeing postwar Gaza, pointing to Democratic pledges to probe Jared Kushner's business ties, a step that could sink one of Trump's key Middle East initiatives.

After the results came in, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid proposed a reset, writing on Wednesday that Israel should return to the rule that worked for seventy years before Netanyahu's 2015 speech to Congress against then-president Barack Obama's Iran deal. "Israel doesn't choose sides in America. We work with everyone," Lapid said, proposing a listening tour across the United States and arguing that many newer critics are not anti-Israel but oppose settler violence and Netanyahu himself. "America isn't lost and wasn't lost. It's waiting for someone to come back and talk to it," he said.

Brad Lander, one of roughly half a dozen newly elected Jewish Democratic members of Congress, rejected that approach. "We aren't starving for a barnstorming tour. We're hungry to see respect for international law and human rights," he replied, calling for the release of Abed Abou Shahadeh, an Arab Israeli journalist detained by police this week without a warrant, reportedly over an interview conducted in Qatar with former Balad MK Azmi Bishara. Lander, a liberal Zionist who has accused Israel of genocide, was briefly detained by the IDF last month in the West Bank while accompanying activists helping Palestinians harvest olives amid repeated settler attacks. Lapid later suggested Lander was among those not worth engaging because he "will hate us no matter what."

Jordan Acker, a Democratic Jewish elected official in Michigan, warned that Israelis "wildly underestimate the degree of angst and anger among rank-and-file voters over what they see as Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians," adding: "But when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging." Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro argued that turning the page requires removing Netanyahu, who he said "is poison, not just to Democrats but to many Republicans." Some analysts floated Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot forming a minority government with Mansour Abbas's Ra'am party after the inconclusive October 27 Knesset election, though Eisenkot has ruled out that path, preferring a coalition with ultra-Orthodox parties.

One silver lining for Israel, some say, lies in the scale of the Democratic victory. With the party expected to hold roughly 250 House seats, well above the 218 needed for a majority, progressives will find it harder to pull the agenda all the way left on Israel, and a Democratic congressional aide told The Times of Israel that members opposed to punitive steps against extremist settlers can likely be counted on one hand.

Still, Braunold said the prevailing worldview among Democrats and within the Republican leadership-in-waiting is that Israel was on the ballot and that things must change radically. Vance has told aides he partly blames Netanyahu for the Iran predicament, saying the premier encouraged Trump to launch the war in February with optimistic predictions that never materialized, according to a former US official. "Democrats are saying to Israel, 'Tell us what you're for, and show us that you can be with our values,'" Braunold said, adding that Vance simply wants an Israel that stops acting as an irritant to US policy, whether in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza or the West Bank.