America’s Trilemma and the Fracturing of the Pro-Israel Coalition
By M. K.Sudarshan
The Mutation, Not Death, of Greater Israel
This is where most analysts mistake the nature of the problem. They think the Greater Israel project is a plan that can be “won” or “lost.” It is not. It is a self-reproducing logic of occupation, settlement, and dependency that outlives any particular government, strategy, or even moral justification.
Even if Netanyahu falls, Israel’s security establishment—the military, intelligence, settlements—remains institutional. Centrist or left-wing governments still maintain control over the West Bank. Settlement expansion continues under different justifications: “security,” “historic rights,” “demographic balance.”
Even if the U.S. retrenches, Israel develops self-sufficiency. Nuclear ambiguity becomes the undisputed regional nuclear power. Domestic arms industry replaces U.S. dependence. Regional alliances with Azerbaijan, India, and Gulf states replace U.S. patronage.
Even if Iran and Sunni states reconcile, the Palestinian question still remains unresolved. As long as Palestinian statehood is blocked, moral and political leverage stays with Israel. As long as refugees cannot return, the demographic threat remains contained. As long as Jerusalem’s status is contested, the symbolic struggle continues.
Thus, even if the region unites, Israel will still exist as a fortified island—maintaining military superiority over all neighbors, controlling water and airspace and electromagnetic spectrum, preserving nuclear ambiguity as ultimate deterrent, keeping U.S. diplomatic cover at the UN.
So, the project’s ultimate goal isn’t conquest. It’s survival through permanent advantage. And that goal does not require maximalist biblical borders. It requires only that no alternative order can emerge.
The American Dilemma: Hegemony or Withdrawal
Here lies the central contradiction that will define the next decade.
The U.S. establishment knows that Greater Israel is essential for maintaining Middle East hegemony. But the domestic coalition for it is fracturing.
— Neoconservatives want Greater Israel because they want American military intervention to create it.
— Christian nationalists in the MAGA wing increasingly want U.S. isolationism and oppose endless Middle East wars.
— Traditional Christian Zionists want Israel’s expansion and will support intervention.
— But young evangelicals under 30 are abandoning Christian Zionism—support for Israel fell from 75% in 2018 to 34% in 2021.
Trump’s cabinet already includes Tulsi Gabbard (since resigned), who promised to end “neocons’ agenda of costly, endless wars.” That is the isolationist wing pushing back. Bannon declared the Greater Israel Project “collapsed”—meaning the strategy is failing even as the establishment tries to double down.
The U.S. thus faces a strategic trilemma. It can have at most two of:
1. Hegemony in the Middle East
2. Retreat from costly interventions
3. Cooperative regional order
The current strategy is to try to keep all three by doubling down on Greater Israel, hoping it can be achieved without full war. But the ground is shifting beneath it.
India’s Realist Gambit: Betting on Israel’s Survival, Not America’s Hegemony
In this unfolding drama, India under Modi has emerged as an unexpected but telling player.
In February 2026, Modi visited Israel and pledged “resolute support” for Netanyahu, signifying a Special Strategic Partnership encompassing defense, AI, and technology cooperation. Opposition parties accused Modi of abandoning the Palestinian cause, but the move was deliberate.
Why would a nation that championed Palestine for seven decades make this pivot? The answer reveals a realist long view that cuts to the heart of the matter.
India’s calculus operates on three overlapping logics.
First, ideological affinity: Modi and Netanyahu are kindred spirits in what analysts call the “nationalist international”—both lead majoritarian religious-nationalist projects (Hindutva and Jewish settler nationalism), both practice strongman diplomacy, both marginalize Muslim minorities, and both frame their politics as sovereignty against Western liberalism. This isn’t just geopolitics; it’s civilizational alignment.
Second, pragmatic self-interest: Israel is “one of India’s most consequential defense partners,” jointly developing air and missile defense systems embedded within India’s own defense-industrial base. Israel provides technology without imposing political conditions. The partnership includes 50,000 additional Indian workers admitted to Israel, digital financial cooperation, and Israel’s diplomatic support on Kashmir and terrorism.
Third—and most crucial—the long-view realist bet: India may be calculating that the Greater Israel project is structurally undefeatable, even if it never achieves maximalist territorial borders. Israel will survive as a fortified military-technological power regardless of whether the project “wins” territorially. As Netanyahu explicitly frames it, India is central to Israel’s strategy as a “strategic rear” and capability partner in Asia, alongside Tokyo. The international order is “reorganizing around connectivity, deterrence, and technological capacity rather than formal alliances alone.”
India isn’t, of course, betting on American hegemony lasting forever. It knows that’s declining. Instead, India is betting on Israeli survival within a multipolar order—and positioning itself as Israel’s strategic partner before the transformation completes. If the cathedral eventually transcends, India will have already secured its defense and economic gains with Israel.
The irony is profound: India’s traditional foreign policy was “strategic autonomy”—non-alignment, multipolarity, not choosing sides. Now Modi has abandoned that for explicit alignment with Israel. This suggests India believes the Israel-India defense-technology corridor will endure longer than American hegemony itself—a subtle but crucial distinction.
This calculus validates the central insight: even if the Greater Israel project doesn’t “win” territorially, its structural logic (Israeli military superiority, defense-technology networks, regional fragmentation) will endure. India is betting on that endurance. Whether it’s right depends on whether the cathedral eventually collapses or stands. But India’s move confirms that smart realists are already positioning themselves adjacent to the last stones standing.
(To be concluded)
Sudarshan Madabushi