While it’s impossible to know whether President Donald Trump’s “memorandum of understanding” with Iran will be deemed by history to be a blip or a humiliating defeat for America (if it even holds), one thing looks increasingly clear: Israel lost.

That’s not just because Israel’s archenemy has arguably emerged more dangerous than ever. It’s also because Israel repelled large swaths of the American public along the way.

When I was growing up as a Christian conservative kid in the 1980s, support for Israel wasn’t so much an option as it was a law of physics. Gravity pulled things downward, taxes were too damn high, and Israel was the good guy.

But those days are gone, at least in terms of public perception. According to a Pew Research Center survey from March, “60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year.”

This didn’t happen over night. In recent years, support for Israel has eroded across broad swaths of Americans.

The war in Gaza put that process on steroids, with younger Americans in particular viewing Israel’s response to the barbarity of Oct. 7, 2023, as disproportionate.

But the Iran war accelerated these trends, inviting questions about whether U.S. policy is being shaped in ways that conflict with America’s own national interests.

Consider those devastating reports about the run-up to the Iran war that described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressing President Trump to take a more aggressive posture, insisting that conditions were favorable for regime change. (These days, whenever politicians start talking about how easy regime change will be, I get the sweats.)

Or consider comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suggesting that the United States was drawn into military confrontation based on the sense that an attack from Israel was imminent and on the assumption that Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces in the region.

Then there were all of Trump’s desperate, halting attempts to negotiate an end to the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The perpetual stumbling block? Israel’s war with Hezbollah kept stymying America’s exit (Iran insisted that any deal must end the fighting in Lebanon).

To increasingly skeptical Americans, our relationship looked less like a partnership and more like a timeshare scam; Bibi talked Trump into going to Iran — and then wouldn’t let him leave.

Eventually, this sense of being trapped spilled out into frustrated outbursts directed at the Israeli prime minister. “Why did Bibi have to do a f‑‑‑‑‑‑ attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no f‑‑‑‑‑‑ judgment. I let him know that,” Trump told Axios.

Now, I want to be fair about this. From Israel’s perspective, persuading America to attack Iran made perfect sense, as does wanting us to finish the job — however one defines that.

Israelis see themselves as living in a dangerous neighborhood, surrounded by hostile actors and existential threats.

Given Jewish history, that’s entirely understandable. If your family history includes pogroms, expulsions and attempts at extermination, being vigilant is hardly irrational.

And let’s be honest about something else: Netanyahu appears to have concluded that Trump represents a uniquely persuadable partner and that whatever advantages can be extracted from the relationship should be seized quickly, before the opportunity disappears.

That too was a reasonable calculation — at least in the short term.

But now, Bibi — who, at home and abroad, looked like a Svengali as recently as a couple of months ago — has been thrown under the bus by Trump.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid might have summarized it best when he said that Netanyahu’s options now involve “either a direct and destructive confrontation with our greatest ally, or a submissive surrender of Israeli interests.”

Those of us who have been keen Trump watchers for over a decade might have warned Bibi about this inevitable outcome.

By aligning itself so closely with Trump and one wing of the MAGA movement to gin up a war against Iran, Netanyahu simultaneously pushed away mainstream Democrats and Never Trump conservatives, sacrificing decades of bipartisan goodwill that had made its international support sacrosanct.

The military adventurism has also enraged “America First” populists in the Republican Party. Some might be fueled by antisemitism, but others are concerned by the not-so-crazy belief that American leaders are putting another country’s interests ahead of our own.

Where any of this ultimately ends is anyone’s guess. But I can’t help thinking Israel would have been better served preserving the broad bipartisan reservoir of goodwill it once enjoyed among ordinary Americans — the kind that came naturally to kids like me growing up in conservative households decades ago.

Goodwill, after all, is easy to lose and difficult to replenish.

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Matt K. Lewis is the author of “ Filthy Rich Politicians” and “ Too Dumb to Fail.”

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