Netanyahu backlash reshapes politics | Fox News

Is it all Bibi Netanyahu’s fault?

There is no doubt that his incessant warmongering and the chilling impact of civilian casualties have turned Israel into a pariah state.

While Israel was an influential partner in joining (some say provoking) President Trump in attacking Iran, the two sides are now largely at odds.

Trump called him “fuck you” and said “if it wasn’t for me, you’d be in jail.”

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Netanyahu is facing a corruption trial that has been repeatedly postponed due to Israel’s war against Hamas and now Iran.

“All the Jews are sick of you,” Trump told the prime minister last year as the president was trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, according to Maggie Haberman/Jonathan Swan’s book “Regime Change.”

Trump is particularly angry with Bibi right now because his continued attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon have undermined his efforts to make a deal with the Iranians.

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He says he created a security zone to protect his country and that the United States will do the same.

There has long been a natural sympathy for Israel as the only thriving democracy in the Middle East.

When it was established by the United Nations in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust, it was immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors.

Although the Jewish state has made peace with some of its neighbors, especially Egypt, thanks to Jimmy Carter, other Arab countries insist that Israel has no right to exist.

However, Netanyahu has strongly opposed a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestinian country, and Israel has been accused of being an apartheid state.

A new wave of global fear occurred after October 7, 2023, when Hamas brutally murdered more than 1,200 Israelis of all ages in a barbaric attack.

But despite the understandable retaliation, Netanyahu’s military tactics have destroyed much of the goodwill that has emerged since then and likely fueled the rise of ancient hatred of anti-Semitism around the world.

Emergency crews responded to a residential building in the Rimal district of Gaza City following Israeli airstrikes on May 26, 2026. (Ahmet Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Hamas, which sacrificed its own Palestinians by enlisting them in the army, estimates the death toll at 70,000.

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman writes in the New York Times: “Even though Netanyahu had defeated Hamas militarily, he never nurtured or welcomed a moderate Palestinian alternative. So the killing of all Palestinian civilians during the war appeared to the rest of the world to be just that: killing, pure and simple, not to pave the way for better Palestinian rule, but to pave the way for ANY Palestinians in Gaza.”

This brings us to Zohran Mamdani.

Although he won the mayoral race a year ago as a socialist promising free buses and state-run grocery stores, he has never withdrawn his support for “river to sea”, which means wiping Israel off the map.

But the mayor has achieved great success in New York politics by successfully putting three pro-Palestinian candidates into Congress in Tuesday’s primaries and unseating two incumbents.

But it also created a major headache for the national Democratic Party.

“Mayor Mamdani took on three solid communists and received a resounding and universal applause from the Fake News Media,” Trump posted yesterday.

It seems that the word socialist no longer carries a strong enough meaning.

The problem is that most of the country lies to the right of the five boroughs.

It will now be easy for the opposition to label the Democrats not only as socialists but also as pro-Palestinian.

In fact, the Democratic Party is rapidly moving towards an anti-Israel stance. That’s where the energy is, especially among younger voters who don’t remember all the wars in which the country has been attacked.

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“You better believe this is a sign of where the party is headed, which is why Republicans are foaming at the mouth over what they call the ‘Communist Corridor,'” columnist Rachael Bade wrote on her website.

The comment fades. Joe Scarborough said on MS NOW: “The idea that you can brutalize children and women in Gaza, destroy half of Lebanon, let thugs run amok in the West Bank, with indiscriminate bombings on television every day for years.”

“And brutalizing Palestinians, brutalizing Christians in Bethlehem, brutalizing Christians in that area, blowing up Catholic churches in Gaza with Palestinian Muslims, especially Palestinian Muslims. Of course, I’m saying things that are relevant to some of these people who are very surprised that Israel is in such a low position in America right now.”

In a showdown between Jewish Democrats, Rep. Dan Goldman was unseated by Mamdani’s pick, former comptroller Brad Lander. Lander argued that the congressman’s support for Israel made the United States “complicit in genocide.”

Rejecting the characterization, Goldman said following his loss:

“As history has taught us, anti-Semitic tropes and stereotypes — some of which I have heard myself in this campaign — will ultimately be the undoing of our democracy, unless we all lean in and speak out.”

It’s surprising how unpopular Israel and its cause are, even in liberal New York City, which has the largest Jewish population outside Israel.

NYC Mayor Mamdani and Governor Hochul Hold News Conference on World Cup Transportation New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul during a news conference on transportation for the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the MTA Rail Control Center in New York on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

There was a frenzy among Democrats, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, who sued Trump for alleged financial fraud. James says he and others were “disappointed” with the outcome.

“Some of the candidates he supports are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from borough to borough, have not been part of the history and struggles of some of these boroughs, and are relatively new to the political community.”

Community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of Mamdani’s three winning candidates, walked out of a radio interview on election day when pressed about her past support on social media for abolishing the police, abolishing ICE and declaring that “Israel does not exist.” Chevalier not only generally said he regretted his past tweets, but also wrote that “the entire deportation is wrong” and used a sexual slur against the NYPD.

Some of these offensive messages were published as recently as 2022.

There is no doubt that Mamdani will wreak havoc on his party in the coming years.

“Mamdani Turns Jew Hatred Up To 11,” said the New York Post’s editorial yesterday, adding that she was “totally anti-Semitic.”

Note that Big Apple voters ignored party leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer’s support for Muslim mayoral candidates.

There is great disillusionment with anything that smacks of the Democratic establishment, which is seen as a bastion of empty promises and failure to deliver for the working class.

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That’s why Washington and Seattle also elected socialists for mayor.

So there are several layers of politics here. You could chalk this up as a low-turnout race, with about half the turnout of Democrats who ran in Mamdani’s race.

But given the socialist mayor’s determination to play Palestine politics, it’s fair to say it’s all up to Bibi Netanyahu.