The Blogs: In America's culture war, Israel was the loser | Alexandria Fanjoy Silver

Historian Alexandria Fanjoy Silver argues that Israel and the Jewish community were the biggest losers of the 2026 US election, drawing parallels to historical patterns where Jews were scapegoated in broader conflicts. She cites Trump's call to end aid to Israel and JD Vance's post-election post as evidence that both parties now view support for Israel as a liability.

In a blog post for The Times of Israel, historian Alexandria Fanjoy Silver argues that Israel and the Jewish community were the biggest losers of the 2026 US election. She draws a historical parallel to the Chmielnicki massacres and other pogroms, where Jews were caught between warring sides and ultimately sacrificed by both. Silver contends that both major US parties have now concluded that supporting Israel is a political liability: President Trump called to end aid to Israel on election morning, and Vice President JD Vance posted that changing the US-Israel relationship was a priority for defecting Trump voters. She notes that the Democratic sweep included Abdul El-Sayed, who made the US-Israel relationship a campaign villain. The piece is a personal essay from Toronto, reflecting on her earlier warnings that turning Israel into a partisan symbol would backfire.