Pro-Israel Liberal Lobby Group Supports Halting US Military Aid to Tel Aviv

The liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street has called for a gradual halt to all United States (US) military aid to Israel by 2028. This marks a striking sign of how far the political shift in Washington has come regarding unconditional support for Israel.

In an interview with the Israeli media outlet Haaretz, as reported by Middle East Monitor on Tuesday (14/4/2026), J Street’s head, Jeremy Ben-Ami, stated that US-Israel relations must be “normalised” so that there are “no more exceptions for special treatment”.

Israel, Ben-Ami asserted, is expected to fund its own military needs from its own budget after the current military aid agreement expires.

Many critics emphasise that Israel’s aggressive stance in the region and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine would be greatly hampered without US aid, which would force Tel Aviv to change its policies.

This shift in attitude is considered significant because J Street has long positioned itself as a liberal Zionist alternative to more hardline pro-Israel lobby groups, while still maintaining strong US-Israel relations.

Although J Street’s position does not go as far as calling for a full arms embargo, it marks one of the clearest acknowledgements from a mainstream pro-Israel organisation in the US that the era of automatic military subsidies for Tel Aviv is becoming increasingly politically untenable.

Ben-Ami stated that future arms sales to Israel must be subject to the same legal standards applied to other countries.

One such legal standard is the Leahy Law, which prohibits US aid to foreign military units accused of committing gross human rights violations.

Ben-Ami also argued that Israel, with a defence budget of US$45 billion (Rp771 trillion), is capable of funding its own defence systems such as Iron Dome.

This shift in stance by one pro-Israel lobby group comes amid a broader shift among the Democratic Party, where Israel is increasingly viewed as a political liability rather than an unquestionable ally.

Last week, the latest Pew poll showed that 60 percent of US adults now view Israel negatively. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, that figure rises to 80 percent, up from 69 percent last year.

This decline in support is reshaping mainstream Democratic politics. One Democratic House member, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stated earlier this month that she would oppose future US military aid to Israel, including for defence systems.