Mike Whitney – The Unz Review Nov 7, 2026

Many of the MAGA voters who enthusiastically backed Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda in three presidential elections have been outraged to discover that he and nearly all of his Republican colleagues are actually just puppets under the tight political control of a foreign country, with the same also being true for the overwhelming majority of their establishment Democratic rivals. Ron Unz, The Unz Review

The 2026 midterms might have been a severe setback for AIPAC, but the Jewish lobby is still a force to be reckoned with. As you can see in the graph above, AIPAC has its tentacles spread across the political landscape, holding America in the grip of a foreign country. And despite Tuesday’s GOP bloodbath, tens of millions of dollars will continue to flow into the campaigns of candidates who support the Israeli agenda whether it involves an unprovoked attack on a country that poses no threat to US national security or the unconditional support for the slaughter of unarmed women and children in Gaza. So, no, AIPAC is not down-for-the-count just yet, but they have taken a beating and will be forced to adjust their approach so it better fits in a world where Israel is universally regarded as a pariah state. Now check out this statement from AIPAC following the election:

 

So, yes, the Lobby did lose a few seats, but it’s not going to affect US foreign policy because they have supporters on both sides of the aisle. In other words, the so called “Blue Tsunami” (the Democrat landslide) will not lead to a fundamental change in the US relationship with Israel or inhibit the flow of money and weapons to Tel Aviv. After the dust settles, the Congress will return to its traditional role of rubber-stamping 99 percent of Israel’s demands while applauding any new criminal aggression perpetrated by “our greatest ally”. That’s just how the system works. Some readers will recall that Biden never refused a single request from Netanyahu for either more money or more bombs. In fact, more Palestinian civilians were killed during Biden’s tenure than Trump’s. Remember “Genocide Joe”? Biden earned that name by providing Netanyahu with whatever he needed to kill more Palestinians. The midterms won’t change that dismal trend. Here’s how Alon Mizrahi summed it up on X:

The US elections is a sideshow to the war in Iran and the turmoil in Europe. The empire has not been canceled, the Pentagon has not been dissolved, and no one was fired at the CIA…. The progressive achievement symbolizes good general trends, but it is strictly a symbol. Actual power has not been transferred or qualified in any way….

The Democratic Party is Israel. It is run by Zionists at every level, everywhere in the US. To maintain their control, these Zionists now need to separate Zionism from ‘the Israeli government’ (and) co-opt the Palestinian cause and make it about ‘the two-state solution’ and ‘settler violence’ once again. This will give Israel enough time to ethnically cleanse Palestine completely till Republicans win power again….

The Democrats exist to maintain the status quo on all issues. The main tools in its disposal are deceit and manipulation…
Liberals are hopeful, but not even as hopeful as they were when Obama was elected. We all know what happened next. – Only Iran can save the US, and that’s by handing it a catastrophic, traumatic defeat. Everything else is cosmetics… Alon Mizrahi, X

He’s right, isn’t he? The rejection of Trump and Israel at the ballot box doesn’t really change anything, it just shows the growing frustration of the electorate. Unfortunately, neither party is going to act on the mandate delivered in the election. Instead, the Dems will try to pacify their constituents by rehashing the moribund “two-state solution” or demanding an end to settler violence. But nothing will come of it. More land will be annexed, more cities demolished, and more children killed. Wash, rinse, repeat. Did I mention that the Senate will be headed by uber-Zionist Chuck Schumer while the Speaker of the House will be Israel-First toady Hakeem Jeffries. Take a look:

 

So, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are on Team Israel?

Indeed, they are, which means that nothing will change and Washington’s “unconditional support” for Israel will continue. Like Mizrahi said:The Democrats exist to maintain the status quo on all issues. It’s worth noting, however, that both Jeffries and Schumer are less popular than Trump. Check it out:

November NBC News Poll:

Chuck Schumer 13%
Hakeem Jeffries 18%
Donald Trump 33%

The “Democratic” party is going to install Schumer as Leader and Jeffries as Speaker despite the fact that they have lower approval ratings than Donald Fu**ing Trump. Liberals got played so hard, but if it’s any consolation, everyone gets played by the duopoly. The function of both parties is not to serve the people, but to serve the rich and powerful Proud Socialist, X

 

Bottom line: Israel is in no danger of losing America’s unconditional support. But that doesn’t mean the elections haven’t triggered a panic among the punditocracy who seem to think the world is about to come to an end. For example, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the elections in the most apocalyptic terms:

“Let’s just be clear about what happened last night. This is as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans across the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years.” Fox News, X

Analysts at CNN called it “The Blue Tsunami” and a “total GOP wipeout.”
According to the BBC, the midterms represent “a generational sea change”… “The Netanyahu government sowed the wind and reaped the tsunami.” “The US results showed “just how toxic Netanyahu has become” among both Democrats and Republicans….

“Israel’s political establishment understood intellectually that things have been shifting. They have not understood how much and how quickly,” one US official with knowledge of the situation told me…
“Everything that Israel used to get in a simpler, easier process will now potentially be much more complicated, and Israel has to be prepared that this is a new reality,” he told me. BBC

This is all pearl clutching nonsense. Israel is in no danger of losing American support nor do the anti-AIPAC Dems have the numbers needed to force a policy change. So why all the hyperbolic rhetoric? That’s what we want to know. Check out this post by chief political analyst at channel 12 News, Amit Segal (Israel):

When an Israeli politician talks about “the world,” they are almost always referring to the few square miles between Capitol Hill and the White House. Europe can complain, and South America can flip between political camps, but what happens between the Oval Office and the Senate floor is the only thing that truly dictates the fate of the State of Israel. Amit Segal, X

November 4– The bad news keeps piling up. What happened in America last night is a catastrophe. Take AIPAC’s worst nightmares, double them, and you still don’t get close. The only consolation is that Abdul El-Sayed won his Senate seat by a smaller margin than expected. Will the Democrats learn that anti-Israel politics and antisemitism cost you votes? I doubt it. And a great many Jews voted for him anyway.

It’s getting worse. First the Democrats blamed Israel for America’s troubles: grocery prices, America’s slipping standing, the war with Iran. Now, with JD Vance’s tweet and Donald Trump Jr.’s share, the Republicans are blaming Israel for the Republican Party’s troubles. Vance’s message: we stuck too close to Israel. That is far more dangerous.

Israel now faces its biggest challenge in Washington since at least the 1975 “reassessment,” when Ford and Kissinger froze arms deals to pressure Jerusalem. There’s only one answer I know of: a national unity government. Flirting with a new election, a minority government propped up by the Arab parties, or a deal with the Haredim would be a grave mistake. Amit Segal, X

Read the last two lines again. This is why the midterms are being blown out of proportion. The more pragmatic Zionist elites (like Segal) realize that Bibi’s reign of terror needs to come to an end pronto, so they are manufacturing a crisis (the midterms) to drive him from office. No Israeli prime minister has ever inflicted as much reputational damage on Israel than Netanyahu. He has eroded Israel’s soft power and put the country on a path to deepening isolation and sanctions. He’s gotta go and even his supporters know it. This is an excerpt from an article at the Jerusalem Post:

Following Tuesday’s midterms in America, however, a different kind of national crisis emerged: the changing state of Israel-US relations….. The US elections can be interpreted in many different ways. But former ambassador to the US Michael Oren put the implications for Israel starkly, in a piece he penned on Wednesday: “So ends half a century of the US-Israel relationship as we have known it.”

That half century of support rested broadly on a shared American feeling that in the Israel-Arab conflict, Israel was the good guys: the side worth supporting because of its history, because of the values it represents, because supporting it meant being on the right side of history. Now, because of numerous variables – generational and demographic changes in the US…. – that equation is being flipped.

The midterms made the shift particularly clear in the Democratic Party, where anti-Israel positions that lean on antisemitic tropes – something that in the past might have made a candidate unelectable – can now be an electoral asset. There is also JD Vance’s postmortem take on the election – and what the vice president’s reading of the results signals about the direction of the Republican Party.

Less than 24 hours after the Republican thumping, Vance already had his explanation: the Iran war, the resulting economic pain, and America’s relationship with Israel….. Vance is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign whose theme essentially is: blame the Jews. Maybe not all the Jews, but those in Israel and the American ones who support them – the suggestion being that they drove US policy, and ordinary Americans paid the price….

“Israeli politicians must realize that we are facing a warlike situation that demands national unity,” wrote Oren. “Israel has faced similarly daunting situations before …and we can overcome this one as well, but only through national solidarity.” After America’s midterms, the clock is ticking for Israel to bridge its political divides, Jerusalem Post

This isn’t a call for unity; it’s a call for political change, regime change. That’s what he’s saying. Netanyahu must go. This doesn’t mean that right-wing Zionists are any less committed to settling Gaza and expelling the Palestinians to some other location. No. It simply means that they want to install a government that will be more discreet in the way it conducts its incremental annexation plan. That’s what they want. After three years of headline grabbing massacres, the Zionist elders want to get out from under the microscope, so their war crimes are not prominently featured on social media every day. And, as we all know, they are not going to change their overall objectives (Greater Israel), so their only option is to replace the man at the top, Netanyahu. That’s why Netanyahu’s gotta go.

This is from an article at Jewish Currents:

EXODUS CANCELED: “Democrats Are Losing the Jewish Vote.” American Jews are “politically homeless.” Midterm races are “testing” Jews’ support for Democrats. “Are Jews breaking up with the Democrats?”

Nope, nope, nope, and no. A survey of 800 American Jews who voted in the US midterms on Tuesday, conducted for J Street by GBAO Strategies, found that 72% voted for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district, perfectly flat from 2024.

Every two years, Jewish leaders cry that the Democratic Party’s inching progress away from unconditional support for Israeli apartheid will alienate Jews. This year there was some reason to think they might be right: This was, after all, the midterm cycle that “shattered the pro-Israel consensus” in the Democratic Party, as my colleague Alex Kane wrote this week, while the Republicans did their best to portray themselves as the party of American Zionism, and the logical political home for the Jews.

But the national Jewish vote didn’t budge, and that’s because the underlying politics of the Jewish community do not match the politics of the people who purport to speak for Jewish Americans. Asked if their sympathies are more with the Israelis, the Palestinians, or both, roughly half of Jews aged 18 to 34 said they sympathized with the Palestinians. Just a fifth said they sympathize with the Israelis. Among all Jews, 23% said they sympathize more with the Palestinians.

These are remarkable numbers offer more evidence that the Zionist consensus inside the American Jewish community is toppling. Among young Jews, it’s already fallen: 63% of Jews aged 18 to 34 said that they’re less likely to support a candidate who they know is backed by an AIPAC super PAC. And 60% agree with the statement that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, and therefore the US “can no longer continue supporting them with military aid.”

Lots of people are talking this week about what Jews are feeling after a bunch of pro-Palestine candidates won their elections. Look at these numbers, and consider which Jews they’re speaking for. Jewish Currents

 

The results of the J Street survey are shocking and help to show that the people who purport to speak for American Jews, only speak for a small sliver of a larger and more diverse group. In reality, these hardliners (Levin, Shapiro etc) are very much in the minority and in no way express the views of the broader community. In short, the group with the biggest bullhorn is actually the smallest in size. Take a look:

From the J Street survey:

72 Precent of American Jews voted for the Democratic congressional candidate compared to 24 percent for the Republican.

Jews are less likely to support an AIPAC candidate than one that is not supported by AIPAC.

74 percent of Jews “Disapprove Strongly” with the way Trump is handling his job as president.

On a scale of 1 to 100, 49 percent of Jews have a favorable opinion of Mamdani while only 20 percent have a favorable opinion of Netanyahu.

49 percent of American Jews between 18 to 34 are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than they are the Israelis.

A full 70 percent of Jewish voters think US support for Israel should either be conditional or ended altogether.

76 percent of Jews think sanctions should be imposed on settlers who commit violence against Palestinians or on Israeli government officials who aid and abet violence against Palestinians.
80 percent of Jewish voters think that Israels actions in the West Bank and Gaza increase antisemitism in the United States. J Street 2026 National Election Survey of Jewish Voters

Naturally, far-right Zionists have lambasted liberal Jews as “suicidal” for clinging to a party that has broadly condemned Israel’s actions under Netanyahu. But Jewish Dems have shrugged off the criticism and voted Democrat anyway. Consider the astonishing outcome of the Abdul El-Sayed-Mike Rogers race where 60 percent of Jewish Democrats voted for an openly Muslim candidate who blasted Israel’s invasion of Gaza as a genocide. And while it’s true that a small number of Jewish Dems either didn’t vote or voted for the GOP candidate, it’s also true that “AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), spent tens of millions of dollars opposing El-Sayed in the 2026 Michigan U.S. Senate race—primarily during the Democratic primary.” (Note– In the primary, the UDP spent roughly $30.6 million, while in the general election “reports indicated transfers of up to about $9 million from UDP-linked sources”…“Total AIPAC/UDP-linked spending against El-Sayed or for his opponents across the cycle is commonly cited in the $30–42 million range.)

Bottom line: Tens of millions of dollars were spent to demonize El-Sayed and make him look like an antisemite or a would-be terrorist. But the campaign backfired spectacularly and El-Sayed prevailed. If there is a sliver of hope we can extract from the midterms, that is it.

 

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