“Americans’ views of Israel have taken a dramatic turn. It could shape both countries’ politics heading into November’s election and beyond,” Bloomberg reports.

New polling this week:

• 40% of U.S. adults now think America is too supportive of Israel, according to an AP-NORC poll. That’s up from 27% in August 2023, shortly before the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terror attacks and Israel’s punishing response.
• The shift is most dramatic among Democrats, 58% of whom say the U.S. is too supportive of Israel; Republicans still largely back the country.
• But younger Republicans are growing skeptical, too: 57% of Republicans under age 50 have an unfavorable view of Israel, according to a Pew poll from March.
• Among younger independents, 70% have an unfavorable view, Pew found.”

Stephen Collinson: “President Donald Trump’s Iran entanglement is beginning to resemble a visual illusion known as the Penrose stairs, which endlessly climb and descend but always end up in the same place.”

“The predicament is of Trump’s own making after he launched a war that never promised a definitive exit and crafted a memorandum of understanding that failed to address the reasons for the conflict.”

“Does he escalate the war — at a potentially high human, economic and political cost — to try to shatter a new status quo that hands Iran the most leverage? Or does he try to revive a flawed ceasefire that pays Iran billions just to talk?”

“President Vladimir Putin is rejecting calls to negotiate peace with Kyiv, three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters, with Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and ports strengthening his resolve to keep fighting for now,” Reuters reports.

“Two of ​the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Putin was instead likely to escalate the conflict, now well into its fifth year. One of them, who meets regularly with the president, described a ‘high ‌probability’ of escalation in the coming months.”