On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship had become a political liability.

Trump’s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it”, was condemned across the board – with pro-Palestinian advocates dismissing it as “desperate” and pro-Israel ones as “unserious”.

Trump’s suggestion that he would replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales signaled little would change in practice – the funding would continue and it would be harder to track.…