A flashpoint for the global left – Mar 18 2026

Mar 18, 2026
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By Dylon Jones

A visitor holds an AIPAC folder on March 12, 2024 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

The nation is at war with Iran, oil prices are surging and voters are gripped with concerns about the cost of living. Many are alarmed by what they see as a deeply troubling erosion of constitutional norms under Donald Trump.

Yet in a handful of congressional primary elections Tuesday in Illinois, a dispute over the power of the pro-Israel lobby occupied center stage. The role played by the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee — and the larger issue of American policy toward Israel — has emerged as one of the most divisive issues within the Democratic Party, long a bastion of support for the Jewish state.

It’s a dynamic that’s starting to play out across the globe within center-left political parties as they contend with major shifts in public opinion over the war in Gaza — and as Israel’s far-right government charges farther and farther afield of what left- and moderate-aligned voters will tolerate.

The friction over Israel is especially pronounced in the U.S., which holds a unique position as Israel’s top supporter both economically and militarily. Within the Democratic Party, it’s prompted soul-searching as support for the Jewish state plummets among its voters, fueling progressive primary challengers and making party leaders who defend Israel sweat.

But those same tensions are also roiling party politics across Western Europe.

Last month, beleaguered U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Labour Party suffered an embarrassing electoral loss to a leftist Green Party campaign that emphasized the war in Gaza — and it happened on Labour’s home turf.

In 2024, Labour won over half the vote in northern England’s Gorton and Denton, once part of the party’s insurmountable “Red Wall.” But in last month’s by-election, the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer knocked Labour into third place, behind Nigel Farage’s ultra-conservative Reform Party, and claimed a comfortable victory with over 40 percent of the vote, becoming the first Green MP in northern England.

Spencer emphasized a pro-Palestinian message, calling the war in Gaza a genocide and running leaflets that bore the Palestinian flag. And the 34-year-old erstwhile plumber made a concerted effort to draw the constituency’s significant Muslim population away from Labour, speaking Urdu in a campaign video that included an image of Starmer with Indian leader Narendra Modi, whom many Muslims view as a persecutor.

Across the English Channel, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed movement, which has called for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel — and drawn backlash in the past for declining to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization — outperformed expectations in several first-round municipal elections on Sunday, winning big in key working-class and immigrant communities and pressuring the ailing French center-left, despite President Emmanuel Macron himself ramping up his criticisms of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

Even in Germany, where historic taboos surrounding the antisemitism of the Nazi Party shade rhetoric about Israel, pro-Palestinian political figures have triggered controversy among coalitions on the left. Over the weekend, the leftist Die Linke party’s state branch in Lower Saxony drew condemnation across the political spectrum — and fomented internal dissent, including the resignation of Brandenburg’s Commissioner for Combating Antisemistism — after it passed a resolution condemning Zionism, calling the war in Gaza a genocide and describing Israel as practicing apartheid.

The electoral developments in the U.K. and France in part reflect an international decline in support for traditional establishment parties as populist and nationalist movements grow on the left and the right. But the recent success of progressive candidates who freely criticize Israel — often in harsh terms seldom heard in halls of power — underscores a unique challenge for center-left parties and coalitions already facing bitter approval polling and threats from ultra-conservative populists, from Farage in the U.K. to Marine Le Pen in France to the AfD in Germany.

That challenge will only grow more dire as major national elections approach and voters continue to see devastation in Gaza on their media feeds. November brings high-stakes midterms in the U.S. The 2027 French presidential election looms. And soon enough, the 2028 election to succeed Donald Trump will begin taking shape.

Already, a crowded Democratic primary field is forming — and already, the candidates debating the future of the party and the unique relationship between the U.S. and Israel are adjusting their positions and having their ties to AIPAC closely scrutinized.

Welcome to POLITICO Forecast. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at forecast@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at dylonjones@politico.com@tdylon_jones.

Trump temporarily waives shipping restrictions amid surging oil and gas prices: President Donald Trump on Wednesday waived a century-old shipping law to allow foreign vessels to ship goods between American ports, as the administration races to contain rising fuel prices caused by the war in Iran. The president issued a 60-day suspension of the Jones Act, which typically required goods moved between domestic ports to travel on U.S.-built and operated vessels. The goal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, is to ease supply bottlenecks and lower prices for energy amid the Middle East conflict.

NATO’s Rutte sidesteps Trump threats: NATO chief Mark Rutte on Wednesday declined to address Donald Trump’s latest warning he could reconsider the U.S. role in the alliance after berating allies for not backing his war in Iran. The U.S. president on Tuesday branded NATO countries “very foolish” for snubbing his demands for military support in securing the critical Strait of Hormuz trade artery. As a result, rethinking the U.S. role in the alliance it founded was “certainly something we should think about,” he said. But asked about the latest broadside, Rutte demurred. “When it comes to the Strait of Hormuz, I have been in contact with many allies. We all agree, of course, the strait has to open up again,” he said.

Enter the disrupter: Far-left Mélenchon seizes momentum in French elections: Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon is emerging from this month’s municipal elections as France’s chief political disrupter, building momentum he hopes will turn him into the leading contender against the far right in next year’s presidential race. The nightmare scenario for France’s beleaguered center left, however, is that Mélenchon would make for a highly divisive presidential candidate, and polling suggests he could ultimately gift a win to the far-right National Rally in 2027.

In 2025, 41 percent of the global population lived in countries where democratic norms are backsliding toward autocracy, according to a new report — in 2005, only 9 percent of the world lived in such societies.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell takes questions during a press conference on March 18, 2026 in Washington, D.C. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

As widely expected, the Federal Reserve held rates steady today — the war in the Middle East has made any interest rate cuts much less likely in 2026, not just in the U.S. but around the world.

From Washington to Frankfurt, and London to Tokyo, the world’s central banks are likely to strike a more wary tone on inflation while assessing the fallout during a flurry of policy meetings taking place this week, write POLITICO’s Victoria Guida, Johanna Treeck and Geoffrey Smith:

“The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a channel through which roughly a fifth of global oil passes, is pushing up costs not only for energy and transportation, but also for other key goods that are shipped through the waterway. The result could be a toxic mix for central banks: higher prices and lower employment, two problems they’re not equipped to address simultaneously.

The specter of a prolonged global energy crunch could dash the hopes of consumers, businesses and investors worldwide for rate cuts this year — and in some cases, throw those plans in reverse.

No immediate moves are likely except in Australia, which raised its target rate by a quarter-point on Tuesday. But markets have already repriced their bets on what comes next from monetary policymakers. Indeed, if the Fed does cut rates later this year, it might be one of the few major central banks that does so, given that other economies like Europe are more exposed to higher energy costs than the U.S.

Before the war, investors saw a chance of cuts from the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. Now they’re pricing in an altogether tighter policy stance: at least one ECB rate hike this year, a 60 percent chance of a BoE increase, fewer and later cuts from the Fed and more urgency in raising rates from the Bank of Japan.”

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