In the wake of the latest Gaza flare-up, the United States will likely focus on managing Israeli-Palestinian tensions instead of deeply engaging in a new peace process. But with the conflict unresolved, U.S. bipartisan support for Israel will likely continue to weaken, introducing new diplomatic stress and skepticism into the close U.S.-Israeli relationship. Following the 11-day war between Gazan militants and Israel, the United States has been increasing its diplomatic profile in the Levant, appointing a temporary Israeli ambassador and, on May 24-26, dispatching Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region to solidify the recent cease-fire reached between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the Israeli government. 

• Blinken’s trip was largely focused on finding ways to bring reconstruction aid to Gaza without supporting Hamas or sparking security concerns from Israel. Israel often accuses aid of being utilized by Hamas for military purposes. Prior to the war, Israel acquiesced to aid being allowed into Gaza in exchange for Hamas holding off or limiting rocket attacks and provocations against Israel.

But while Blinken kept open the option of making progress toward new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the conditions on the ground do not appear favorable for a major restart of that process. The issues that led to the unraveling of 2013-2014 peace talks — namely, mutual distrust, Hamas’ intransigence toward the talks, and Israel’s settlement expansions — remain unresolved. But in addition to those factors, the peace process now also faces the added hurdles of a divided Palestinian political system and an increasingly right-wing Israeli government. 

• Strong Palestinian grassroots anger is forcing Palestinian leaders like President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas to be more confrontational with Israel. 
• Meanwhile, in Israel, a more right-wing electorate is even less likely to accept compromises with Palestinians. Indeed, many Israelis even opposed the recent cease-fire in Gaza, favoring more military operations to deter Hamas.

Instead, Washington will continue to focus on using humanitarian aid and diplomacy to manage tensions between Israel and Palestinians. But a shift in media tone and political optics in the United States will also embolden critics of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, undermining the two countries’ otherwise close relationship. The latest Gaza flare-up triggered an outpouring of U.S. domestic support for the Palestinian cause, which propelled progressives in the Democratic Party to attempt to symbolically block a $735 million arms deal approved for Israel. The stronger pro-Palestinian reaction was driven by a combination of larger social trends, including younger voters attaching wider social justice themes to the Palestinians, an ideological drift between some U.S. Jews and a more religious and right-wing Israeli public, declining support for Israel among younger evangelical Christians, and better organized social activist movements that have utilized the internet to craft and distribute pro-Palestinian narratives in the United States.

• In April 2021, just weeks before the latest Gaza conflict was triggered, Human Rights Watch for the first time used the term “apartheid” to describe Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Though the group lacks political clout in Congress, the decision was emblematic of changing attitudes towards Israel among influential human rights observers and media organizations.
• Polling in the United States suggests a weakening support base for Israel. A 2020 Pew research study found wide divergences in support for Israel amongst U.S. Jews depending on their religious orientation, with ultra-Orthodox far more attached than reform or secular Jews. A University of North Carolina at Pembroke study found that support for Israel among young evangelical Christians aged 18-29 dropped from 75% in 2018 to 33% in 2020. Even among the broader U.S. public, support for Palestinians is rising; 25% of those surveyed in a March 2021 Gallup poll expressed sympathy for Palestinians, compared with 16% in 2001. The majority of Democrat respondents in the same 2021 Gallup survey also said they wanted to apply more pressure to Israel than the Palestinians to produce peace. 

With these forces in play, both future U.S.-led peace talks and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts are likely to see Washington take a more critical approach to Israeli policies, limiting Israel’s aggressiveness and potentially emboldening that of Palestinian militants. If Washington does start a peace process, it will face political pressure to use its leverage over Israel to make talks more viable by forcing the Israelis to make concessions. More likely, however, is the U.S. continuation of conflict management, which will be able to address violence after it’s begun rather than prevent it. But to help mitigate the risk of another Gaza conflict, Washington is also likely to diplomatically pressure the Israelis to hold off on wide-scale military operations and to de-escalate from future military confrontations earlier than Israel would prefer. This could potentially embolden Palestinian militants who might perceive such U.S. pressure as an erosion of Israel’s military deterrence against them.

• Beginning with Bill Clinton in the 1990s, each of the past four U.S. presidents before Biden attempted to strike a peace deal between Israel and Palestine during their time in office. If the current Biden administration opts out of a serious peace process, it would thus be a notable break in regional precedent and could signal a willingness by the United States to let other states — from rivals like Russia and China, to more friendly countries like Egypt — try their hand at mediating Israeli-Palestinian tensions.
• During the May 2021 Gaza conflict, the Biden administration preferred private pressure to restrain an Israeli ground invasion and bring about a cease-fire. But progressive Democrats in Congress — including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Bernie Sanders — broke with the party’s tradition by more overtly criticizing Israeli military policies in response to the latest flare-up. Future conflicts could see more U.S. lawmakers align with those skeptical views.