By Daniel Rosen, President of the American Jewish Congress
Published originally in The Algemeiner.
Across Europe and parts of the West, criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly turning into something larger: a growing argument that support for Israel itself should be reduced while he remains in power.
That is a dangerous idea.
In democracies, leaders change, elections continue, and governments rise and fall. Alliances are supposed to survive all of that.
If strategic cooperation becomes conditional on whether foreign publics approve of another country’s elected leader, then every election risks becoming an international security rupture.
President Donald Trump was unpopular in parts of Europe during both of his presidencies. Yet most Americans would never have expected allied governments to suspend intelligence sharing with the United States or weaken counterterror cooperation because they disliked the occupant of the White House. Security partnerships exist to protect populations and preserve stability, not to function as a reward system for political approval.
Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), while sharply criticizing Prime Minister Netanyahu, warned against turning Israel into a partisan issue in American politics. The distinction matters.
Quiet or open coordination with Israel has helped Gulf Arab states confront missile threats, cyber operations, and Iranian destabilization. Countries such as Morocco and Azerbaijan have deepened ties with Israel because they see concrete strategic and security value, not because they are emotionally invested in any individual Israeli leader.
The same logic applies beyond the Middle East. Even several European governments that have become increasingly critical of Netanyahu’s policies have largely stopped short of severing core intelligence and security relationships with Israel, because the underlying threats have not disappeared.
Whether one supports or opposes Prime Minister Netanyahu politically is ultimately secondary to a larger strategic reality: cooperation with Israel continues to save lives, contain threats, and stabilize regions that would otherwise drift further toward Iranian influence and extremist violence. Inside Israel itself, opposition figures such as Yair Lapid have continued backing major national security operations against Iran despite deep political disagreements with Netanyahu. Israeli national security transcends internal politics.
Even in places where public rhetoric remains cautious, the underlying strategic logic has not disappeared. Lebanon’s future stability depends on reducing Hezbollah’s domination and limiting Iran’s ability to use Lebanese territory as a permanent base. Syria’s future stability similarly depends on preventing Iranian militias and weapons networks from fully reconstituting themselves. Cooperation with Israel has played a role in constraining those outcomes.
There is also a moral dimension that should not be ignored.
Helping prevent attacks against Israeli civilians through intelligence sharing, missile defense cooperation, and counterterror coordination is not an endorsement of every Israeli government policy. It is a recognition that civilian lives matter regardless of who is in office. The violent groups that Israel confronts have not only harmed Israeli citizens but also led to the destruction of Palestinian communities in Gaza and southern Lebanon. A debate over how Israel has confronted these groups is legitimate. The idea that Israelis should collectively pay a price because foreign audiences dislike their current government is not.
Democratic alliances should not operate on the principle that populations become less deserving of protection whenever foreign audiences dislike their elected leadership.
Democracies are supposed to build something more durable: the ability to maintain strategic continuity despite internal political disagreement. Leaders come and go. Threats often remain.
The true foundation of alliances between democratic nations is not the composition of a particular government, but a shared belief in liberal democratic values: freedom, equality, tolerance, and the rule of law. Democratic societies are built by peoples who live according to these principles, and it is those shared values that form the enduring bond between us. At a moment when democracies across the Middle East, Europe, and the broader world face overlapping security threats, allowing temporary political disagreements to weaken strategic alliances would be a profound mistake.
Daniel Rosen is the President of the American Jewish Congress.
