Israel’s war in Gaza pits President Joe Biden against his party base, as well as a partisan divide over Democrats’ long-standing support for Israel, CNN reports.

In its analysis, the American network reports that long before the Gaza war broke out, polls showed that the sympathy of the Democratic voting audience has shifted from Israel to the Palestinians over the past two decades or so, a period that coincides with the assumption of of power in Israel by right-wing governments, led mainly by the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, support for Israel over the same period has increased significantly among radical Republican voters.

The percentage of Republicans who support Israel today is twice that of Democrats, which also shows that the gap between the parties has widened compared to the past, according to a poll by the Gallup Organization.

This widening partisan divide in the United States, CNN reports, also suggests that even after Netanyahu leaves the political scene, the cross-party consensus in Israel, once an almost unchallenged position in US politics, has been damaged.

Although the vast majority of Democratic officials do not seek a meaningful break with Israel, Biden could be the last Democratic president to align himself so unreservedly with Israel. In this context on Tuesday he is expected to give a speech on anti-Semitism at an event sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Museum. For his critics in the Democratic camp, the focus is on the actions of his administration, which is set to report to Congress on whether Israel is using US weapons in accordance with international law and whether it is cooperating with the surrender humanitarian aid.

Biden’s deep personal connection to Israel is part of the perennial political stance of US Democratic presidents as after Israel’s founding in 1948, Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton all supported the Jewish state.

Republican presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, also supported Israel, but more so when it conflicted with their other regional goals of maintaining access to oil and pushing back soviet influence. Both Reagan and Bush had opposed Israel on the occasion of the temporary suspension of aid.

Over the past quarter century or so, this partisan pattern has reversed. Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump have been most identified with Israel, while Clinton (in his second term) and Barack Obama expressed the most disagreements with the Israeli government. Many factors contributed to this reversal of roles, chiefly Bush’s campaign against Islamic extremism after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, elevated Israel to a regional ally.

The growing identification with Israel of White US evangelical Christians has also pushed the Republican party to become more supportive of the Jewish state. Instead, more and more Democratic party voters, from ethnic minorities to liberals, are expressing their opposition to Israel’s policies, calling its actions in the occupied Palestinian territories colonial and oppressive.

Netanyahu also appears to have played a huge personal role in unpopularity within the Democratic camp, as he has pursued consistently conservative policies in Israel (such as his attempt to weaken the judiciary that sparked mass protests nationwide), while rejecting pressure from Democratic presidents to negotiate an independent Palestinian state. At the same time, he has aligned himself with the Republican Party as overtly as any foreign leader. Netanyahu in 2015 delivered a speech to Congress opposing the Iran nuclear deal at the invitation of House Republicans. Netanyahu also adopted Republican arguments in criticizing the war protests on US campuses as anti-Semitism.

In this context, partisan polarization on Israel among American voters had already widened years before the brutal Hamas attack last October and the devastating Israeli response.

One measure is annual Gallup polls that ask Americans whether they side with Israel or the Palestinians. In 2001, the percentage of Republican voters who expressed sympathy primarily for Israel exceeded the percentage of Democrats by only eight percentage points (59% vs. 51%) in favor of Israel. The gap among respondents who like Israel widened under Trump to nearly 40 points and has ballooned to 45 points over Biden. In the 2023 and 2024 surveys, Gallup recorded for the first time a higher proportion of Democrats among supporters of the Palestinians.

Biden during the war has been more openly critical of Netanyahu and the far-right coalition with which he governs, but he still rejects growing demands in Democratic ranks to punish Israel for waging the war and resisting humanitarian aid.

Biden’s allies, however, also believe that Israel’s critics within the party are overestimating the political risks of his continued support.

As the war rages on with a wave of protests on college campuses exacerbating rifts, there are clear signs that the party’s center of gravity is shifting away from the gut-wrenching support for Israel expressed by older Democrats like Biden and Schumer.