Lindsey Graham’s hard-line Iran stance keeps him close to Israel
Graham kept pressing for strikes on Iran and tighter support for Israel as U.S. polling swung toward Palestinians and skepticism of Gaza operations deepened.
Lindsey Graham has kept pushing a hard line on Iran and Israel even as American public opinion moved the other way. The South Carolina Republican, one of Washington’s most ardent pro-Israel voices, stayed aligned with Israeli leaders after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel and triggered the Gaza war.
The shift in sentiment has been stark. Gallup found on Feb. 27, 2026, that 41% of Americans sympathized more with Palestinians, while 36% sided more with Israelis. In September 2024, AP-NORC polling found 58% of U.S. adults said Israel’s military response in Gaza had gone too far. Those numbers underscored the widening gap between elite Washington hawkishness and a public increasingly wary of prolonged conflict.
Graham did not ease off. On July 24, 2024, he introduced legislation aimed at holding countries accountable for financially supporting Iran, a move that fit his long-running push for maximum pressure on Tehran. A year later, on June 24, 2025, he took to the Senate floor after a U.S.-Israel confrontation over Iran and praised President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also reiterated his support for stopping Iran’s supreme leader from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly treated Graham as a dependable ally in the U.S. capital. The Israeli prime minister publicly praised Graham’s position on Iran’s nuclear program and, in later tributes, called him one of Israel’s greatest friends in Washington. That relationship has made Graham a familiar bridge between the Israeli government and congressional Republicans, even as the broader American electorate has grown more skeptical of the war’s direction.
The contrast has sharpened as the conflict widened beyond Gaza. Israeli operations since 2023 have helped fuel a broader regional toll, including fighting in Lebanon and Syria, while Hezbollah’s pager attack wounded more than 3,000 people and killed 12, including two children. In that atmosphere, Graham has remained fixed on the same argument: Iran must be denied nuclear weapons, and Israel must be backed without hesitation.
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