The blame game: How the US midterm shock is reshaping Israel's race for prime minister

For years Benjamin Netanyahu has told Israelis the same thing: that he is the man who keeps Washington close. This year the pitch seemed to hold. US President Donald Trump endorsed him ahead of Israel's parliamentary elections last month, and the two countries had gone to war against Iran together. Then the American midterms arrived, and the Republican Party performed disastrously.

Early explanations for the Republican defeat have pointed in part to the Iran war and to the US relationship with Israel. US Vice President JD Vance highlighted both. Al Jazeera's analysis argues that this leaves Netanyahu's claim to be the secret ingredient of the alliance looking much weaker, and that his policies, including the war in Gaza, which the outlet describes as genocidal, the Iran war and attacks across the region, have made Israel politically toxic in the United States. The piece offers no casualty or displacement figures.

Many Israelis are now said to worry that unquestioned American backing can no longer be assumed. As party leaders maneuver to form a government, the opposition has put the blame on Netanyahu and cited it as another reason he should not lead the next one.

Yair Lapid, a former prime minister whose party belongs to the bloc trying to unseat Netanyahu, stressed his own ties to members of the US Congress in a social media post. He said American voters are not so much against Israel as against extremist ministers, settler violence and a government they do not understand, and above all against Netanyahu, for whom anything connected to him is toxic.

Avigdor Lieberman, another opposition leader, voiced a suspicion the article says is widespread in Israel: that Trump's election-day announcement that US military aid to Israel would end was the price of his endorsement. Lieberman wrote that Trump's support for Netanyahu costs $3.8bn a year. Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow at King's College London, said the defence budget, already 7 percent of GDP, would have to rise without American money, and that Israelis would feel it in their pockets. He added that Netanyahu is doing what he has always done, turning one part of the population against another, now by claiming Arab citizens stole the elections so the opposition cannot partner with Arab parties.

The arithmetic from the October 27 vote is difficult for Netanyahu. His right-wing bloc won 53 seats, eight short of the 61 needed. The opposition bloc led by former army chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot won 48. The Arab-led parties, the United Arab List (Ra'am) and the Joint List, hold 19 seats and have both said they will back Eisenkot for prime minister. Eisenkot and other opposition leaders have rejected a unity government with Netanyahu, leaving him without a clear path to a majority.

Eisenkot's self-styled Zionist bloc has previously ruled out serving alongside the Arab-led parties, but it stands to benefit from their support from outside the government. On Thursday his position improved further when United Torah Judaism, Netanyahu's longtime ultra-Orthodox ally, declined to recommend him or anyone else to form a government, for the first time since 2009. President Isaac Herzog must nominate someone to try to form a government, and has not yet done so.

A change of prime minister may not repair the damage in Washington. Pollster Shibley Telhami, director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll, pointed to an April Pew Research Center survey suggesting American attitudes toward Israel are as negative as those toward Netanyahu. His own poll found most Americans would not change their view of Israel under a government without him. Any Israeli government, he said, would be swimming against a rising public tide, and none could restore relations to where they stood five years ago. The next signal to watch is Herzog's nomination.