Democrats' Washington sweep rattles Netanyahu's grip on Israel's coalition

Brad Lander won a House seat on Tuesday. By Friday he was telling Israel's opposition to skip the charm offensive. The New York congressman-elect fired back at Yair Lapid's plan to rebuild trust in Washington with a blunt message: American voters are not starving for a barnstorming tour, they are hungry for respect for international law and human rights.

Lander is no fringe voice. A Jewish Democrat who describes himself as a liberal Zionist, he was detained in the occupied West Bank last month while joining Palestinians trying to harvest olives. He and two other incoming Jewish members of Congress, Daniel Bliss and Scott Wiener, wrote to Israel's ambassador to the US demanding the immediate release of Abed Abu Shehada, a Palestinian citizen of Israel reportedly seized from his home at night by 15 masked officials without a warrant and questioned only about a podcast interview.

That clash is the new backdrop for Israel's coalition arithmetic. The Democrats' sweep of Congress has convinced chunks of the splintered opposition that Benjamin Netanyahu's embrace of Donald Trump's Republicans is now a liability rather than a boast. According to the Guardian, politicians who once called the bet ill-judged are now calling it dangerous, with Lapid warning that for incoming Democrats, anything tied to Netanyahu is toxic.

The seat count is awkward. The opposition controls 67 of the Knesset's 120 seats, but more than a quarter of those went to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and some Jewish Israeli opposition parties have ruled out sitting with them. Toppling Netanyahu demands a unity his camp has never managed to hold together.

The Republican side is not offering cover either. Vice-president JD Vance put the relationship with Israel on a short list of reasons for voter fury, and on election day Trump pledged to cut off $4bn in annual military aid. Defence officials panicked out loud, with one telling Channel 12 the loss of 15 billion shekels a year would be devastating. Netanyahu spun it as a move from aid to partnership.

Commentators are calling it an avalanche. We are losing America, Ben Caspit wrote in Ma'ariv, pinning the collapse on Netanyahu rather than on fate. Nadav Tamir of J Street Israel argued in the Times of Israel that a Congress less willing to treat support for Israel as automatic alignment with any government could, paradoxically, offer the country more meaningful backing. That is the tightrope whoever comes next has to walk.