Israel’s popularity in the United States is waning, including among the next generation of Republican leaders, due in large part to US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to communicate the objectives of the current war with Iran to the public, Senate hopeful John Deaton told The Jerusalem Post on Friday.
Deaton is a staunch moderate in the Republican camp. He has accused Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of being more critical of Israel than of the Islamic Republic and its terrorist proxies.
At the same time, Deaton has called for greater scrutiny of US aid to Israel and Ukraine, arguing that Washington should more carefully assess both the scale of its assistance and the benefits it receives in return.
He has also accused Netanyahu of weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to shield himself and Israel from legitimate criticism, even while acknowledging the unacceptable state of antisemitism in the US.
For Deaton, maintaining the trust of American voters is paramount.
Deaton to refuse AIPAC contributions to show his support is from his convictions, not financial influence
He said he would refuse campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), arguing that doing so would reassure voters that his support for Israel stems from his convictions rather than financial influence.
Deaton spoke to the Post after being questioned while attending July 4 parades about his stance on Israel and the origins of his campaign funding, questions he said were notably absent when he attended the same parades in 2024.
The basis of trust is communication, and that personal conviction is likely where his criticism of Netanyahu and Trump’s handling of the Iran threat has stemmed.
“I do blame a lot of this, the Iran war situation, on a failure of communication by the Trump administration. For example, how did we obliterate Iran? We can all agree, and I certainly agree, that every president, whether it’s President [Bill] Clinton, President George W. Bush, the first President Bush, President [Barack] Obama, or President Trump, has said Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Period. We know they will use it,” he said.
“But how did we obliterate them in June 2025 and set them back decades? Was it bad intelligence when you said that, President Trump? Was that just bad intelligence? And did you not decimate them? If that’s true, fine, because bad intelligence sometimes is faulty.”
Mixed messages about Iran’s progress
There are mixed messages about Iran’s progress in achieving a nuclear weapons arsenal.
Tulsi Gabbard, a Trump ally and former director of national intelligence, said in March that there were no signs that Iran was rebuilding its enrichment capabilities after the 12 Day War, though Trump deemed that the renewed kinetic action was necessary because Tehran posed an imminent threat.
Without communicating the reasons for the renewed action, whether because June’s operation was less successful than previously celebrated or because of a new threat posed by the regime, the unpopularity of the war and rising costs associated with the closure of Hormuz have led many to blame Israel, Deaton noted, claiming that the “trust me bro” approach being adopted now has only deepened the crisis.
“I blame the current administration for what I believe is an abysmal lack of communication. I know this sounds silly, but it’s almost like a ‘trust me, bro’ kind of approach.
“Americans are rejecting that because of the cost of living, and they need more information. If you ask the average American about the significance of the Strait of Hormuz, they don’t know that it is the world’s most important chokepoint for global oil trade or that it can impact up to 25% or more of global oil trade. They have no idea how that affects their daily lives,” he explained.
“In fact, you hear these inconsistent comments. President Trump, on one hand, will say, ‘We don’t need the Strait of Hormuz. We’re independent, and we only get less than 2% of our oil from that region.’ To the everyday American, that sounds like we shouldn’t be involved in Iran.”
Trump’s own reported comments to Netanyahu in June that “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” was a sign that Trump was blaming Netanyahu for the failed operation, Deaton hinted.
What likely fueled Trump’s decision to go to war in February, Deaton argued, was the momentum from the success of the Venezuela operation, a swift mission to arrest Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro carried out without casualties.
Deaton said that Trump may have believed that achieving a free Iran under similar conditions would be celebrated as the greatest military achievement in US history.
“I think both Trump and Bibi need to answer for a colossal failure of intelligence. Did they not believe the Strait of Hormuz would be closed? Was the intelligence that they would be able to prevent Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz? I don’t know if they ever played that out,” he continued.
“It’s almost as if you had a couple of egomaniacs in a back room saying, ‘Listen, if this goes our way, this is going to be the greatest thing to ever happen in the last half century, and we’ll be heroes,’ and then made a decision based on that. That’s how many people perceive it. It’s how I perceive it... And now you have, in my opinion, a less secure Israel and a less secure world.”
Having served seven years in the US Marines, Deaton assessed that the war with Iran has only left the regime in a stronger position and that Washington now has limited options moving forward.
He argued that the potential $100 billion in annual revenue Iran could generate by charging vessels transiting the strait, alongside Tehran’s push for sovereignty over the waterway, would likely not have materialized had the war not begun.
The war has revealed the American mindset to Tehran
More pressing is that Tehran now understands the American psyche, which involves little patience and a desire for immediate results.
“Iran figured out that Americans’ patience gets exhausted quickly. These forever wars, we want Iran to be done and over with. Americans are sick of it. Like the parades I was telling you about, people were blaming me because I’m a Republican.
“They were saying, ‘Your war, John. Your war.’ And even if I didn’t originally think it was justified, I don’t think they explained why we needed to do it,” he commented.
Deaton said he had little doubt about the US’s ability to seize Kharg Island and establish control over the Strait of Hormuz, but how long Washington would be willing to maintain such a position was a separate question entirely.
For the American public to accept the deployment of military personnel on the ground, Trump would need to explain why it was in US interests to station troops within range of Iranian missiles, with limited time to respond, for a prolonged period.
Though the rift is undoubtedly growing, Deaton said Israel could recover some international trust if Netanyahu were no longer in a position of power.
“I’m assuming it doesn’t surprise you if you have elected American leaders who describe Bibi as a terrorist… What I’m getting at is that perception becomes reality, even if it’s not reality.
“If you have leaders, if you have people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are very significant figures, saying that Bibi is a terrorist and that he is committing genocide, and those views gain influence, that filters down to the electorate and to everyday people.
“Then, five years later, you end up asking, ‘Why are we even allies with Israel?’” he said, noting that as bad as public perceptions are now, the true crisis hasn’t yet hit.
“I just honestly think it’s indisputable right now that Iran is in a stronger position, and that’s something I think Netanyahu and Trump need to answer for,” he concluded.