Professor John Mearsheimer put it plainly: Israel’s image in America has collapsed. U.S. policy toward Israel has not. That gap is the story. Americans can see Gaza. They can see the rubble, the famine, the children, the settlements, the impunity. Poll after poll now shows Israel’s favourability cratering — including among young people, Democrats, independents, and even parts of the old evangelical/Republican base that used to be automatic. Sympathy for Palestinians has risen because the pictures and the body counts finally broke through the old script. And yet Washington still writes the checks. Still ships the weapons. Still treats “unconditional support” as a sacred ritual instead of a policy choice. Mearsheimer’s point is that the lobby can still lock down policy even after it has lost the public. Discourse turned. Votes in Congress did not. That is not “shared values.” That is capture. A government that claims to represent the American people should not bankroll a genocide the public no longer supports. If Israel’s standing in the United States has deteriorated this sharply, the honest response is not more talking points. It is an end to blank-check military aid, real pressure to stop the destruction of Gaza, and recognition that Palestinian life is not a rounding error in someone else’s special relationship. Public opinion moved. Policy is the last holdout. That is exactly why it has to change.