Yom Kippur, Responsibility, and the U.S.-Israel Relationship
(by Rotem Oreg-Kalisky, LIBRAEL's founder and director)
As we head toward Yom Kippur, we ought to dedicate time and energy to thinking about what we have done wrong - and what we need to do differently.
That should apply not only to our personal lives, but also to the relationship between Israel and the United States.
As I claim in LIBRAEL’s speaking events, the U.S.-Israel relationship is not something that simply exists. It is something that - like any relationship - has to be maintained and nurtured.
And if we are honest with ourselves, Israel has made some serious mistakes in the way it understands and engages with America, particularly with liberal America and the Democratic Party.
Mistake Number 1: Not Understanding the Facts
Recently, I was asked on Twitter about comments by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, who said in a podcast with Nadav Perry that “the entire Democratic Party is Mamdani, except Fetterman.”
Without getting into Israeli politics, here is my answer: broadly speaking, Chikli is right that Senator John Fetterman is in the minority. But he is wrong to suggest that the Squad and people like NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani represent the Democratic Party either.
He argues that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and “the Squad” have grown tenfold. That simply isn’t accurate.
The Squad grew from four members initially to nine at its peak, and currently has seven members in the U.S. House of Representatives. Several progressive candidates could potentially expand that number after the upcoming elections, but they are not expected to even double their presence.
At the local level, Mamdani is not the only mayor considered hostile to Israel. There are a couple of other major American cities whose mayors have taken similarly critical positions. But I honestly had to look up their names - which probably tells you something about how little they are involved in these issues.
And public opinion tells a similar story.
Minister Chikli's words are a self-fulfilling prophecy: he believes "there's no one to talk to" in the Democratic party, so he does not talk with Democrats. This reinforce his assessment that "there's no one to talk to."
There are certainly serious challenges in the way parts of liberal America view Israel - otherwise, we would not have a problem and I would not have established LIBRAEL. We should be delicate and careful, and remember that there are major differences among voters within the Democratic Party itself.
Current polling shows that Israel is losing ground, but it also shows that Americans’ views of Israelis are not identical to their views of the Israeli government. In Pew’s May 2026 survey, 43% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning adults held a favorable view of Israelis, compared with only 16% who held a favorable view of the Israeli government.
This is something we can - and should - work with.
The same is true when we talk about Hamas. There are Democrats who hold views of Hamas that are deeply disturbing, but they remain a minority: Pew’s Beyond Red and Blue survey from the spring of 2026 found that 19% of “progressive left” Democrats and 12% of “left-out left” Democrats hold a positive (very or somewhat favorable) view of Hamas - which is not insignificant, but pales in comparison to the 80% of both groups who hold a negative view of Hamas.
And that’s just within the more left-leaning factions of the party: moderates and centrists, who make up a larger part of the coalition than progressives according to the survey, are even more sympathetic to Israelis and more hostile to Hamas.
We can't dismiss it as Minister Chikli does.
We Expect Black-and-White in a World of Gray
More broadly, I think that Minister Chikli is making the argument he is making precisely because he does not talk enough to Democrats - and that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which he believes “there is no one to talk to.”
As I speak with Democrats, whether on college campuses or Capitol Hill, I find that most are somewhere on a spectrum between Fetterman and Mamdani.
They usually dislike the Israeli government. They probably oppose its policies. There’s a good chance they believe Israel has gone too far in Gaza and that Israel is failing to do enough to confront nationalist violence in the West Bank. They may even be willing to reconsider aspects of the U.S.-Israel relationship - for example, conditioning certain forms of military assistance or imposing sanctions over nationalist violence.
I suspect this is what Chikli means when he says that they are “lost” or that they are all "Islamists" and "communists". (I honestly don’t know: he did not respond to the people who referred my comment to him and said, “You should speak with Rotem.”) But that is an exaggerated interpretation, if not outright wrong.
Because at the same time, these same people do not necessarily hate Israel. They do not want more Jews to be killed. They do not have anything concrete against Israel as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people. And they certainly do not justify violence against civilians.
The real question is how Israel bridges the gap between their criticism of Israel, their legitimate demands for changes to the relationship, and Israel’s legitimate security needs.
And that begins with understanding something uncomfortable: the expectation that the entire Democratic Party should behave like Senator Fetterman - supporting all of Israel's claims without criticism - is simply unrealistic.
Forget what you think of the Senator normatively, whether you agree with him or not - that’s just out of touch with political reality.
Mistake Number 2: Not Taking Responsibility
The question stemming from that analysis leads to another question: what happens when the American public no longer gives Israel that blank check?
And that question is no longer theoretical.
Congressman Brad Sherman, a longtime pro-Israel Democrat from California, recently shared a CNN segment showing four separate national polls in which Israel’s net favorability was negative: -10 in Ipsos, -11 in Fox News, approximately -20 in the Marquette poll, and -23 in Pew.
CNN noted that this was no longer simply a phenomenon among the Democratic base, but was visible in the broader American electorate.
The numbers are not a new phenomenon, but Rep. Sherman’s point was striking: he argued that the segment should be translated into Hebrew and shown to every Israeli, because Israelis do not understand that America is being lost.
Rep. Sherman is not some longtime opponent of Israel. He is a longtime supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship who has continued to vote in ways favorable to Israel even when he has criticized Israeli policy. That should make his warning particularly difficult to dismiss, and yet some people on Twitter replied to him and put the responsibility on HIM, for “not doing enough” to fight these trends.
I tweeted about it and was asked what Israel should actually do. Here is my answer, in a nutshell:
0. Do No Harm: What Not To Do
Do not establish another Hasbara Ministry, as Hasbarah activist Yussef Haddad from the Amcha Israel party demands.
Do not launch Pinkwashing-style campaigns built around Pride, cherry tomatoes, and Israeli high-tech.
Do not call everyone who criticizes us - however harsh or unfair that criticism may be - antisemitic.
Do not talk about Gazan "willing migration", do not say "there are no innocents in Gaza", and do not call for settling in Lebanon or Syria.
And above all, do not continue policies that provide little or no strategic benefit while causing enormous diplomatic damage, such as turning a blind eye to nationalist violence in the West Bank (and I am not even getting into the moral failure involved in that).
We will simply have to change our ways, particularly in the West Bank, because while what we say matters, our actions will speak louder than words.
1. Policy Change Is Only the First Step - and It Has To Be Leveraged
If Israel changes policies that are eroding its moral standing, politicians and diplomats will then have to work hard to demonstrate that Israel is not the terrible country it is often portrayed as, instead of thinking that “our actions will speak for themselves.”
That means much more engagement with foreign media - and actually speaking to the intended audience rather than to the domestic base - as well as releasing information and materials quickly enough to be relevant to the conversation.
2. We Need Smarter, Faster, Audience-Specific Campaigns
Speak “liberally” with liberals, “conservatively” with conservatives, “Christianly” with Christians, "Gen-Z" with young people, and so on. That means respecting their worldview - whether we agree with it or not - and adjusting our messages accordingly, as LIBRAEL teaches in our How to Speak Progressive workshops.
We need to stop trying to "prove" rationally that we are right by obsessing over the three Ds - data, dates, and definitions - and start thinking much more seriously about emotions: how do we create support, or at the very least, understanding?
3. Use Soft Power Much More Effectively
That can mean conditioning strategic deals - such as major air-defense systems - on diplomatic support, such as cutting funds to UNRWA or publicly rejecting the BDS movement.
It can mean building international forums and partnerships whose very structure communicates: we are the good guys.
For example, I supported for some time launching a strategic partnership with our sister-country Ukraine: that could serve not only concrete Israeli interests in areas such as drones, but also place Israel within a broader coalition of countries defending sovereignty, security, and democratic values.
4. Strengthen the Foreign Ministry
This has become a cliché, but for good reason.
Some diplomatic missions in strategically important locations are operating with zero activity budgets. Some key units are understaffed.
At the end of the day, the Foreign Ministry - as fashionable as it may be to criticize it - is made up of the professionals who maintain these relationships every day. Diplomacy is a profession, and those professionals need resources and the political backing of the elected leadership to do their jobs.
5. At the Same Time, Strengthen Civil Society
In the field of public diplomacy and the battle over Israel’s image, anything carrying the “government of Israel” brand has a very strong glass ceiling.
Civil society organizations can often penetrate difficult audiences more effectively because, first, they are not perceived as government propaganda, and second, they can represent a broader range of views - including, as in LIBRAEL’s case, critical ones.
The golden age is over. Israel needs to adjust its expectations accordingly. If we want support from America we will also have to give things in return. And the more Israel proactively initiates that conversation about reciprocity, the better that conversation will be for us.
At LIBRAEL, we cannot accept government funding: not just because it would severely limit our ability to work with members of Congress, but because we insist on maintaining our independence - we rely on individual donors and family foundations to get the job done.
But there are many other organizations doing valuable work, and the government should help create the conditions for civil society to do more of it.
6. And Finally, We Need to Understand That the Golden Age Is Over
There was a time when most Americans supported Israel, accepted its basic assumptions, and generally went along with its demands, while a relatively small minority said, “Absolutely not.”
Whether we like it or not, that world is gone.
Today there is a much broader spectrum. There are the Fettermans and Rubios, who are generally unlikely to challenge Israel publicly - we should be thankful, but not base our entire national security policy on them. There are the Mamdanis and the Carlsons, for whom even giving Tel Aviv to the Palestinians would probably not be enough.
But most Americans - on both the right and the left - are somewhere in between.
Israel needs to adjust its expectations accordingly.
If we want support from America - munitions, interceptors, diplomatic support, a veto at the UN Security Council, pressure on the ICC, and so on - we will also have to give things in return.
And the more Israel proactively initiates that conversation about reciprocity, the better that conversation will be for us.
That, ultimately, is the Yom Kippur lesson I think we need to take seriously.
Putting all the blame - and all the responsibility to make amends - on one side has never been a smart strategy for maintaining a relationship.
A relationship cannot survive on what one side believes it is entitled to receive from the other, no questions asked.
It survives when both sides understand what the other needs, what the other values, and what each is willing to do to preserve the relationship.
Israel does not have the luxury of giving up on the Democratic Party, even as the Democratic Party itself changes.
Nor can we expect Democrats to stop changing in order to make us comfortable.
If we want this relationship to survive - and Israel to survive - we need to change.
The responsibility is, as always, first and foremost on us.
Chatima Tova.
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