Trump Netanyahu News: New Congress Tests US-Israel Ties
The Trump Netanyahu news coming out of Washington this week is not about a phone call between the two leaders or a handshake at a summit. It is about a Congress that has not even taken its seats yet, and a relationship that has held for decades suddenly facing its most serious reassessment. The Washington Post reported on Monday that a newly seated Congress is signaling it wants to rework the long-standing American relationship with Israel, pressing for new conditions on aid and a fresh look at how American money is spent.
That question would have been unthinkable as a mainstream debate only a few years ago. For decades, support for Israel commanded near-unanimous agreement in both parties. What changed is the election itself. On Tuesday, November 3, voters handed Democrats control of both chambers, and many of the winners were progressives who had campaigned openly against military aid to Israel and the war on Iran. The new Congress takes its seats in January, but its members have already made clear the old deference is over.
Midterm Elections 2026: How the Vote Changed the Relationship
The midterm elections 2026 were shaped in part by anger over the Iran war, and the Israel question ran through the campaign in a way it never had before. Israel's military campaign in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's open embrace of Trump and other Republicans had already strained the bipartisan support that sustained the relationship for generations. By the time voters went to the polls, criticism of that support was no longer confined to the fringes of one party — it was a position winning candidates ran on in both chambers, and one that helped carry them to victory.
The shift is generational as much as partisan. Opinion polls show younger voters, including some Republicans, feel the country has been too supportive of Israel and not supportive enough of residents of the Palestinian territories. A 2025 Washington Post poll found that 61 percent of American Jews believe Israel is guilty of war crimes, and 39 percent call it genocide — numbers that help explain why candidates who criticized the Israeli government were rewarded at the ballot box rather than punished.
Congressional sentiment had already been moving. In September, 46 of the 47 Senate Democrats voted for a resolution led by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders requiring the State Department to report to Congress on rising violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including the killing of American citizens. Republicans blocked it, but the near-unanimous vote was a sharp departure from decades of bipartisan backing — and a preview of what a Democratic majority would do with the gavels.
The New Lawmakers Who Will Drive the Debate
The new Congress arrives with a freshman class that embodies the shift. Five Jewish Democrats are likely to enter Congress for the first time: Daniel Biss in Illinois, Brad Lander and Micah Lasher in New York, Scott Wiener in California, and Jeremy Moss in Michigan. Only Wiener faced a competitive race. All five are in their forties and fifties, with identities formed in liberal Jewish communities, and all are coming to Washington with a more questioning view of the relationship than the generation they are replacing.
They are not a bloc. Moss holds the most traditional pro-Israel views of the five and has been quietest on the issue. But as a group, they promise to lend new votes, and new credibility inside the Jewish community, to legislation that could curtail arms transfers and sanction violence in the West Bank. Michael Koplow, chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum, which promotes a two-state solution, put it this way: "I don't think this group is homogeneous by any means, but I do think they're coming in with a more progressive view of what Israel is doing and a more progressive view of the U.S.-Israel relationship."
Lander, the most outspoken of the group, was detained in the West Bank in October while picking olives alongside Palestinian farmers in an act of protest. When he and Biss issued a joint statement backing Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate candidate whose criticism of Israel had drawn a backlash, they were signaling that criticism of Israeli policy would no longer be treated as disqualifying inside the party. El-Sayed went on to win, becoming the first Muslim elected to the United States Senate despite Republican efforts to sway Jewish voters concerned by his criticism of Israel and by his faith.
Three Bills That Could Redefine American Support
The clearest sign of what the new Congress intends is the legislation already waiting for it. Three bills now have a Democratic majority to carry them forward, and each would change the relationship in a concrete way.
The first is Block the Bombs, which would restrict American transfers of some offensive weapons to Israel unless Israel meets specific conditions concerning American and international law. A growing minority of House Democrats has endorsed it, and Lander supports it. The bill does not end military aid; it makes a defined part of it conditional. That conditionality is the point: for the first time, a significant bloc in Congress is prepared to say American weapons come with American standards attached.
The second is the West Bank Violence Prevention Act, which has more than 180 cosponsors and would require sanctions on people or groups responsible for or complicit in violence in the West Bank. It is the most broadly backed of the three measures, and its focus is the issue that has already drawn the Senate's attention: attacks on Palestinians by settlers, and the killing of American citizens. Democrats will likely focus again on West Bank violence in the new session, and this bill gives them a vehicle that already commands a large share of the House.
The third is the Stop the Settlements Act, introduced last month by Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas, which would subject anyone supporting the expansion of Israeli settlements to American sanctions. Sixty lawmakers have signed on. Together, the three measures describe a Congress that is no longer content to fund the relationship and ask no questions, but intends to use its legislative power to shape it.
Beyond the bills, Democratic control brings the machinery of oversight. Democratic-led committees could hold hearings on settlement expansion and settler violence, scrutinize American arms sales, demand briefings, investigate the treatment of American citizens, mark up legislation and use appropriations to press the executive branch. Hearings are where a shift in attitude becomes a shift in policy: they create a public record, force officials to answer under oath, and give the majority a platform it lacked in the minority.
Republican Party News: Doubt on the Right as Well
The reassessment is not confined to Democrats. In the days after the election, the Republican Party began its own public argument about the relationship, and it started at the top. Vice President JD Vance wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, November 4, that the war against Iran was the reason Republicans had lost, and he reported that a pollster had identified four actions that would bring disgruntled Trump voters back: "1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel." It was a striking list from the vice president of a Republican administration, and it treated a change in the relationship with Israel as one of the four things voters wanted most.
Trump has moved on the question from the other direction. In a Fox News interview on Tuesday, November 3, he said he had made a deal with Netanyahu that Washington would end annual security assistance to Israel, ending $4 billion in yearly aid. Netanyahu later said the aid would shift to a "partnership," without saying whether Trump had given him advance notice. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump added that countries the United States had protected would have to share the costs of the war. "Without us, Israel would not exist," he said.
What the New Congress Can and Cannot Do
For all the ambition in the new Congress, there are hard limits. The president's veto limits the party's ability to force major policy changes, and any bill conditioning aid or restricting arms transfers would need either Trump's signature or a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override him. Neither is in sight.
The separation of powers imposes a second limit. The president controls American foreign policy, and even a Democrat-controlled Congress cannot compel his administration to pursue a fundamentally different approach. The White House will still run the diplomacy and manage the military relationship. What Congress can do is set the terms of the argument that follows: legislation it puts forward would establish the policy baseline from which a future Democratic administration would govern, and two years of hearings, briefings, and appropriations fights would build the record that a future president inherits. That is how a reassessment becomes a realignment: not in a single vote, but in a steady accumulation of positions and findings that make the old consensus impossible to restore.
Israel's Own Political Upheaval
The American shift coincides with upheaval in Israel itself. Netanyahu lost his governing majority in an election on October 27, but denied his opponents a clear path to unseat him, and negotiations to form a new government are expected to be protracted. On Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog tasked Gadi Eizenkot, a rival of Netanyahu, with forming the next government.
That uncertainty matters in Washington, because the character of the Israeli government shapes how Congress deals with it. Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which advocates for a strong American-Israeli alliance, said Israel's changing leadership could change the "mood music" of dealings between the two countries, and a new government less closely tied to Republicans could engage more cooperatively with Democrats. But he cautioned that nothing would change quickly. "Nothing is going to change in the United States until January when Congress takes their seats and by then, there may be a new Israeli government that would also have an impact on this," Schanzer said.
What Happens Next
The first test comes in January, when the new Congress takes its seats and the committee gavels change hands. The earliest signals will be procedural: which committees schedule hearings on West Bank violence and arms sales, which bills are marked up first, and whether the West Bank Violence Prevention Act, with its 180 cosponsors, moves toward a floor vote. Those choices will show how quickly the majority intends to act.
The second test is the aid question. Trump has said the annual security assistance will end, and Netanyahu has spoken of a partnership in its place, but neither has spelled out what that means in practice. Congress will have its own view, expressed through appropriations, and the fight over the next funding bill will be the first place where the new majority's conditions meet the president's deal. The third test is political: Vance has staked his standing on the argument that the war and the relationship cost his party the election, and the five new Jewish Democrats, and El-Sayed in the Senate, will be tested on whether their criticism of Israeli policy can survive contact with governing.
For now, the facts are these: Democrats won both chambers on November 3, in part by promising to reassess American support for Israel. The new Congress has the bills, the votes, and the committee power to begin that reassessment in January. It does not have the power to impose it over a presidential veto, and it will be dealing with an Israeli government that is itself in transition. What was once a settled consensus is now an open question, and the answer will be written in hearings, in appropriations, and in the votes of a Congress that has not yet been sworn in.
Source: The Washington Post