Some of Israel’s most important Western allies, under political pressure from voters appalled by mounting evidence of starvation in the Gaza Strip, now say they will recognize a Palestinian state. President Donald Trump, himself convinced that Palestinians in Gaza are starving, has sent his Mideast envoy to Israel for the first time in months to look at the chaotic food distribution system.
More scholars are debating whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Opinion polls in the United States and elsewhere show an increasingly negative view of Israel. And there is no clear plan to bring the war against Hamas to an end.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded angrily to the growing skepticism. He has said the reports of starvation are exaggerated, that Hamas must be destroyed, that critics are often anti-Semites and that Western recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward to Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people.
“The usual Israeli view is that this crisis is another temporary problem,” said Natan Sachs, an analyst of Israeli politics. “But that’s a misreading of the world, because it’s accelerating a global turn against Israel that has dramatic effects, especially among young people.”
As anger grows over widespread hunger in Gaza, Israel risks becoming an international outcast. The deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 remains a vivid, salient event for many Israelis. But for others around the world, the devastation and hunger in Gaza have become more visible and urgent.
Since Israel cut off aid in March to try to force Hamas to give up hostages, Israel’s effort to install its own distribution system has been marred by chaos and casualties while hunger has increased. Scores have been killed as Palestinians rushed to get food.
And no one has a clear idea of how the war will end, even as Israel has retaken large areas of Gaza several times over. The number of dead in the enclave has reached more than 60,000, a majority of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Netanyahu has not outlined what he has in mind for Gaza or who should try to rule it instead of Hamas. He has refused to engage with the countries most likely to help do that — the Persian Gulf states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Trump remains a strong supporter of Israel in its fight against Hamas, and he has in the past given Netanyahu carte blanche in how to do it. But even Trump has seemed shocked by the televised videos of hunger in Gaza, and some of his most fervent supporters are publicly questioning the relationship with Israel.
The increasing debate over whether Israel is committing genocide is also reflective of how “something fundamental has shifted in how Israel is perceived,” said Daniel Levy, a negotiator under former Labor Party-led governments in Israel and current president of the U.S./Middle East Project, a nonprofit.
He points to a sharp cultural shift, with anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and sometimes antisemitic demonstrations at places including opera houses and music festivals. Pop stars like Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande have made strong appeals for a ceasefire and for the delivery of aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
“For a long time, Israel thought that if we throw antisemitism and the Holocaust at them loudly enough, it will all go away,” Levy said. “But the zeitgeist is shifting, and the Israeli attempt at outrage works with an ever-smaller cohort.”
Opinion polls reflect the change. A Pew poll in April found that American views of Israel had turned more negative. About 53% of U.S. adults now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% before the Hamas attack. Of those, the share who voice very unfavorable views of Israel went up to 19% of adults this year, from 10% in 2022.
Another Pew poll, conducted last month, found that in 20 of 24 countries surveyed, half or more of adults had an unfavorable view of Israel. Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. The figures are higher among younger people — and one of the largest gaps between young and old is in the United States.
The largest danger to Israel in the future is not the stances taken by European leaders or its most passionate critics, Sachs argued. “From the Israeli perspective, the most troubling phenomenon is the people on the fence. Either they don’t know about the issue or want to stay away from it, because it’s toxic,” he said. “The average person who might normally support Israel would rather stay away.”
Netanyahu has been too slow to understand the reality of the shift and its cost to his country, said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. It is difficult to know the full reality in Gaza, because Israel does not allow foreign journalists to enter independently. But aid groups have described mounting malnutrition and cases of starvation.
“There is some truth to the privation and even limited numbers of cases of starvation in Gaza, and there is some antisemitism in the reactions,” Freilich said.
“But whatever the causes, it doesn’t matter,” he added. “The bottom line is that Israel is or is becoming an international pariah, and Israel cannot afford that.”
Israel needs diplomatic support, he said. And it desperately needs good economic relations with Europe and the United States, said Bernard Avishai, an Israeli American professor and analyst.
“Israel made a fantastic bet on globalization, and its economic life depends on its technological elites finding partners in developed countries,” Avishai said. “What happens when companies like that get a cold shoulder from people around the world?”
There is built-up anger in the West at having been pushed for years to keep down criticism over Israeli actions like the occupation of the West Bank, Avishai said, and that anger is now coming out more strongly over Gaza. “What’s happening in Gaza is appalling,” and it diminishes the willingness of people to travel to Israel and to work with its scientists and companies, he said. “For the Israeli economy,” he noted, “this is already devastating.”
Pushed by public reaction and by his own frustration, President Emmanuel Macron of France has said that his country will recognize Palestine as a state at the United Nations in September. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said Wednesday that his country would do the same. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made Britain’s recognition conditional, but the moves nonetheless reflect how swiftly views of the war — and of Israel — have changed among Western countries.
Recognizing a Palestine that doesn’t yet exist is more of a symbolic gesture — 147 nations already do. But if both Britain and France join in, it will isolate the United States as the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that does not. And it would likely force Washington to veto such recognition.
While still blaming Hamas for rejecting a ceasefire, Trump now seems to understand that Netanyahu has little interest in ending the war. A lasting truce would force Netanyahu to make a political choice about Gaza’s future that could collapse his governing coalition, which depends on support from far-right Israeli politicians who favor annexing and resettling the enclave.
Even to allow more aid into Gaza and to institute a temporary halt in hostilities in a belated response to criticism, Netanyahu had to hold a security Cabinet meeting on the Sabbath last week, when his far-right ministers would be unavailable to attend.
Jeffrey C. Herf, emeritus professor of history at the University of Maryland, said he had seen a shift toward anti-Zionism in academia and society and that he expected it to last. He blames Netanyahu for failing to understand that the war against Hamas was also one of political narrative.
“The backlash now is a sign of Israeli incompetence, falling into the trap of Hamas’ cynical and long-term strategy to use the suffering of Gazans for its own advantage,” he said.
After World War II, the Allies aided German civilians, arguing that they had freed them from a mad dictatorship, Herf said. “Israel should have come to Gaza to liberate the people from Hamas, the way the Allies liberated the Germans from the Nazis,” he said. “But now the world hates Israel.”