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<\/a>Credit…Ahmad Gharabli\/Agence France-Presse<\/p><\/div>\n
Polls, social media, and growing boycotts suggest that Israel\u2019s international isolation is worsening. Although some of this stems from forces beyond Israel\u2019s control, the country could take steps to stop the slide, especially with elections around the corner.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
31 May 2026 <\/em>– At the Eurovision song contest, Israel drew protesters as well as boycotts<\/a> by Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia. Days later, Israel\u2019s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced<\/a> that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking<\/a> an arrest warrant for him, and France and Poland<\/a> barred<\/a> another cabinet member, the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, from entering their countries. All of this was in the past month alone.<\/p>\n
\n\nIsrael\u2019s international isolation is deepening fast \u2014 a fact showing up in polls, social media, widening boycotts and the way a new generation around the world has come to instinctively view Israel mainly as part of a story about occupation and Palestinian suffering. It is increasingly apparent that the longstanding cushions of a bipartisan safety net in Washington<\/a> and cordial, if cautious, relations in Europe are dissipating.<\/p>\n
What can stop this slide?<\/p>\n
Parliamentary elections expected in the fall offer the clearest opportunity for change. Depending on the outcome, they can buy a short-lived grace period to create room for pragmatic change. A new governing coalition could signal that Israel intends to answer its global critics by curbing settler violence, halting de facto annexation of West Bank land, facilitating a plan to reconstruct Gaza, restoring workable ties with Palestinian institutions and re-establishing predictable, democratic governance. That combination of assuring Israelis at home while offering concrete gestures abroad is the only realistic path to halt the drift into deep isolation, a dangerous state from which Israel will find it extraordinarily difficult to recover.<\/p>\n
Surveys show just how profound<\/strong> Israel\u2019s isolation has become. A Pew Research Center survey<\/a> from March found that 60 percent of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 42 percent in 2022. Especially worrisome is the age breakdown. Among Americans aged 18 to 49, nearly three-quarters view Israel unfavorably, including nearly 60 percent of young Republicans, the very demographic many Israelis still assume supports the Jewish state. It is, in short, next to impossible to find a young cohort in America that looks at Israel and likes what it sees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n