Analysis: How the October 7 attacks became a turning point for US politics

View of the White House in Washington, D.C., on October 3. Valerie Plesch/dpa/AP

After rushing to comfort Israel as it grieved the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, US President Joe Biden last year pledged America would stand with the country in its dark days and the good ones he insisted would come.

At the time, no one knew the international and domestic political consequences of his promise. An ensuing war has proved the existential role the US plays in Israel’s survival but also severely strained the alliance. It has also exposed and widened some of America’s most profound political divides ahead of an already tumultuous US election.

The October 7 attacks did not only transform the Middle East’s strategic balance as Israel confronted Hamas, then Hezbollah, and traded fire with their sponsor, its archenemy, Iran. The horror set off a chain of events that affected countless lives, unleashing political disturbances thousands of miles away.

Militarily, the United States and its allies have twice staged unprecedented operations to protect Israel from a barrage of missiles and drones from Iran. The US has also repeatedly bombed Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen who have launched attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea in the wake of October 7.

Israel’s onslaught on Hamas in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, may have finally shattered US hopes of a two-state solution. And it’s turned into the greatest foreign crisis of the Biden administration.

Read the full analysis.