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For the first time, American Democrats’ views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted to show more sympathy for Palestinians than Israelis, a Gallup poll has found.
The survey by the Washington, D.C.-based research company, released Thursday, revealed that 49% sympathized with Palestinians and 38% with Israelis.
The steep drop in sympathy for Israelis has taken place over a decade or more and was largely driven by millennials – those born after 1980. Older generations of Americans are more sympathetic to Israelis. In 2013, American Democrats were more sympathetic to Israelis compared to Palestinians by 55% to 19%, according to Gallup.
The views of American Republicans on the issue were largely unchanged from the last Gallup poll, in January 2022. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) Republicans sympathize more with Israelis than side with Palestinians (11%), the poll found.
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However, the U.S. public overall still has a more favorable view of Israelis (54%) than Palestinians (31%), figures that are similar to last year’s Gallup poll on the topic. And a majority of Democrats (56%) still hold positive views about Israel.
“Americans’ views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have become more polarized as Democrats increasingly commiserate with the Palestinians, while Republicans maintain their solid alignment with the Israelis,” the survey’s authors noted in a commentary.
“The escalation of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities over the past year, resulting in a high number of Palestinians killed, could partly explain the most recent shift in Democrats’ perspective. But Democrats’ waning religiosity may be a factor in the longer-term trend. Sympathy for Israel has historically been highly correlated with religion,” Gallup said.
The Gallup survey comes as Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to overhaul the country’s judiciary. Critics say the move will undermine Israel’s democratic institutions. It has sparked weeks of mass protests. The decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has for years shown little signs of resolving.
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