The erosion of Benjamin Netanyahu’s image is no longer confined to American university campuses or within the Democratic Party. Indicators monitored by Israeli newspapers and research centers reveal that a new rift is expanding within one of the environments in which Netanyahu has invested most for decades, which is the Christian base, especially the Evangelical one, which has formed a political and religious lever for Israel in the United States.
Noa Landau, deputy editor-in-chief of Haaretz and a member of its editorial board, wrote that Netanyahu succeeded “with the help of an organized network of organizations, donors and advisors” in creating “an artificial alliance between the Christian right and the Jewish right.”
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The importance of the writer lies in the fact that she does not write from the margins, but rather from a central editorial position in a liberal Israeli newspaper that follows foreign policy and the image of Israel in the West.
The author refers to the relationship that transformed from a values alliance into a political deal from which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu benefited, especially in supporting settlement and moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, adding that “the Palestinians were the main victims of this religious policy,” with the irony that among them were Palestinian Christians.
The author describes what is happening as “the collapse of this extremist alliance,” explaining that the Christian right in the United States has begun to “question it more loudly,” while the national religious factions in Israel are unleashing their anger “against Christianity and Christians,” which reveals the contradiction between Israel’s rhetoric toward Christians abroad and the behavior of extremist movements toward Christians at home.
Field face
In the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, journalist Oded Shalom presents the field face of this crisis from the Armenian neighborhood in Jerusalem, where he relays the testimony of Gero Sandoni, an Armenian ceramics store owner, who says: “The spitting on the Christian clergy, on the Christian symbols, and on the Armenian monastery and the cursing does not stop.”
Shalom quotes Hagop Granazian, a member of the Palestinian Armenian community, as saying that some Christians “think twice before wearing a prominent Christian symbol, such as a necklace, for fear of being insulted.” He adds after tearing down a church flag on Easter: “Imagine the reaction if something like this happened to a Jewish symbol! What an uproar it would cause!”
What Yedioth Ahronoth reports in the Shalom Report reveals the impact of attacks on daily behavior, not only on clerics. When a person is afraid to display his religious symbol in a city that is supposed to be a center for the three religions, freedom of worship becomes a false slogan that does not match the bitter reality that Christians in Jerusalem live in, let alone Muslims.
The Rosing Center for Education and Dialogue provides these testimonies with digital support. According to its annual report on attacks on Christians in Israel and East Jerusalem in 2025, 155 incidents were recorded, including 61 physical attacks, 52 attacks on church property, 28 cases of harassment, and 14 incidents of defacement or vandalism of Christian signs.
Therefore, according to Shalom, incidents such as an Israeli soldier destroying a statue of Christ in southern Lebanon or attacking a nun in Jerusalem become part of a broader context and not just an “individual act.”
Corroded support
The crisis extends beyond the borders of Jerusalem to the evangelical Christian base in the United States. In an analysis published by the Israeli National Security Research Institute, one of the most prominent security think tanks in Tel Aviv, entitled “A severe crisis in Israel’s standing in the United States,” prepared by Professor Ted Sasson, a researcher in the affairs of US Jews and the diaspora and author of the book “The New American Zionism,” Sasson warned that the deterioration of Israel’s image is no longer limited to Democrats or liberal movements, but is also appearing among groups that were considered a guaranteed bloc. For Israel, including Republicans and young evangelicals.
The report also considered that accumulated data indicate that the younger American generations do not view Israel in a clear positive light.
The picture becomes clearer in the latest Pew Research Center indicators published last month, which revealed that 60% of Americans have a negative view of Israel, and 59% do not trust Netanyahu in international affairs.
Even among white evangelical Protestants, who remain the most positive toward Israel, confidence in Netanyahu is only 52%.
Netanyahu is a burden
Here the problem turns from the decline of Israel’s image to the decline of Netanyahu’s image personally. The man who built his relationship with the Christian right as the “protector of biblical Israel” now faces a Christian audience that sees pictures of Gaza, hears about attacks on churches, and continues the humiliation of Christians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Articles by Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth, supported by figures from the Rossing Center, the Israeli National Security Research Institute, and the American Pew Center, reveal that Netanyahu is not losing Christians all at once, but he is losing the monopoly on speaking in their name.
The Evangelical-Israeli alliance was built on a religious and political narrative that gave the Israeli right broad support. However, the war, the rise of the national religious movement, the increase in attacks on Christians, and the decline of American confidence in Netanyahu, transformed this alliance from a strategic asset into an unfolding burden.
