Every presidential election feels consequential, but events have combined to make Tuesday’s vote feel even more so. October 7 and the resulting year-long fallout has convinced many Jewish and pro-Israel voters that the very fate of Israel is at stake. American Jews feel more vulnerable than they have in living memory, with antisemitism skyrocketing by nearly any measure and many Jews facing outright hostility tied to Israel and to their Jewish identity. If you are a Trump voter, you may believe that only he will ensure that Israel has U.S. backing to fight terrorism and Iran, and that only he will combat the far-left assault—literal and figurative—on Jews on college campuses and city streets. If you are a Harris voter, you may believe that only she will stand by Israel without treating it transactionally and work to help Israel transition to sustainable political solutions in Gaza and Lebanon, and that only she will combat the far-right swamp of antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control that led to attacks on Jews in places like Pittsburgh and Poway. The level of existential dread is higher than it has ever been.

Without dismissing the importance of the election and the very real differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump over policy preferences, the last year has revealed and accelerated important changes in the U.S. that go beyond the two presidential nominees. For voters worried about the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship, the key is not to look up at Harris and Trump, but to look around at their fellow Americans. Because while U.S. public opinion used to be a force that constrained the range of outcomes around Israeli-Palestinian policy, that is increasingly no longer the case on either side. It augurs a measure of unpredictability going forward, and also policies that are more closely tied to narrow Israeli behavior rather than to the larger fact of Israel as a critical U.S. partner, no matter who wins the election.

There are many flaws with the argument that it is the “Israel Lobby” that has driven U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, the Palestinians, and the wider region. The biggest one has always been that it ignored the clear and remarkably enduring policy preferences of Americans, clear majorities of whom supported Israel and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship for decades cutting across party lines. This support was driven by a mixture of viewing Israel as a strategically important partner and as a values-aligned ideological bedfellow. Even if most voters discount foreign policy in their voting choices—a contention that is widely assumed as conventional wisdom, but may not actually be correct—there was no upside for presidents in measurably eroding relations with Israel in light of its broad popularity and a nearly universal consensus about its value to U.S. strategic interests. Almost every president for 70 years has battled with Israel over specific things, usually related to Israel’s relationship with its neighbors or its policies in the West Bank, but even presidents such as Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama—alleged by their detractors to be hostile to Israel—did not objectively downgrade the relationship.

But the U.S. is now in a different place, with the challenges to Israel emanating from different ideas and beliefs depending on where you look. On the left, one can look at polls showing that only 24% of people who lean Democrat have a favorable view of the Israeli government, or that Israeli government favorability is underwater by 42 points with Americans aged 18-29 and by 24 points with Americans aged 30-49. But one doesn’t need polls to see how Israel comes across on college campuses, in cultural institutions, and in many media outlets, where the conversation has jumped seemingly overnight from criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians to doubting Israel’s legitimacy to exist as a state in any guise. On the right, one can look at polls showing an explosion in support for more isolationist foreign policies, or the fact that House and Senate Republicans repeatedly voted against emergency aid to Israel post-October 7 unless it also came with cuts to other spending and were not concerned about any voter blowback. But one doesn’t need these datapoints to see prominent right-wing pundits and influencers incessantly question why the U.S. is spending its resources to support Israel, or J.D. Vance—in many ways a better indicator than Trump himself of where the right is going—accusing pro-Israel Americans of trying to push the U.S. into foreign wars a week before the election.

It may be broadly true that foreign policy doesn’t decide elections, but it is a big factor—perhaps decisively—when it becomes a proxy for larger concerns. Obama’s signature policy position during his rise to become the Democratic nominee was opposition to and criticism of the Iraq War, which was a stand-in for the larger idea that President George W. Bush was engaging in foreign wars while ignoring pressing problems at home. Israel is now a proxy in negative ways for larger concerns that are strong on both sides of the political spectrum. On the left, Israel is seen as the embodiment of a U.S. foreign policy that discounts concerns over justice, human rights, and international law. On the right, Israel is seen as the embodiment of a U.S. foreign policy that is too felicitous of foreign interests and too eager to expend American blood and treasure to defend other countries. What this means is that in the long run, a president from either side that wants to shift U.S. policy toward Israel in a substantial way will still face constraints from the American public, but not at the same level that existed for decades.

The most significant stakes in this election for Israel and for voters who care about U.S.-Israel relations are not over the next president, but over how Americans will react to Israel going forward. And that lies more with Israeli policies than anything else. Is the next ten years going to bring increasingly intractable and increasingly expensive Israeli military entanglements in Gaza and Lebanon, with the U.S. asked to help out in ways large and small? Is it going to bring even more expansionist policies in the West Bank, efforts to resettle Gaza, and threats of expulsion of Palestinians who are unwilling to submit to Israeli annexation and their consignment to stateless, limited autonomy? These things will only accelerate the trends taking place in the U.S., which at some point will make every presidential election have larger consequences for policy toward Israel than has ever been the case. Israeli government officials should be less concerned about who wins on Tuesday, and more concerned about how their own policies, actions, and statements are rapidly creating a no-win situation for them on both sides.

Every American citizen should go vote next week, and many reading this column will factor their views of Trump and Harris’ stances toward Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into their decision in some way. The identity of the next president absolutely matters, but Israel’s fate will not rise or fall because of the next four years of U.S. policy. If Israel is to remain unbreakably in the U.S.’ good graces—which is its only truly existential issue, particularly as it is no longer defending itself by itself—Israeli decisions and their impact on Americans will be more decisive than a single president’s decisions and their impact on Israel.