Members of the U.S. military carry the flags of Israel and the United States before the arrival of then Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman in Washington on April 26, 2018. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
A new Gallup poll shows that support for Israel among Americans has dropped to its lowest level in at least 25 years.
46% of respondents said they sympathize with the Israelis over the Palestinians. The previous low was 51%, which was recorded last year and in 2001, which was the first year that Gallup conducted the survey. The poll also found that sympathy for Palestinians has reached 33%, the highest level Gallup has ever recorded.
The results come amid a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. 40% of the respondents said that they support the Trump administration’s efforts in the region.
There is a definitive partisan split on the issue, as 75% of Republicans sympathize with the Israelis while only 10% of Democrats do. Just 10% of Republicans sympathize with the Palestinians, compared to 59% of Democrats.
Last month Gallup released a survey on American opinions toward various countries. That poll found that just 33% of Democrats have a favorable view of Israel, which is also the lowest level in the history of the Gallup poll. 83% of Republicans have a positive view of the state.
In a post breaking down the numbers Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey M. Jones noted that the 50 points separating Republican and Democratic on the issue “shatters the prior record of 30 points measured last year, primarily because of a 14-point drop in Democrats’ rating. The current gap is also nearly three times larger than the average 18-point difference that existed between 2001 and 2023.”
“The widening partisan gap likely reflects Democrats’ opposition to Israel’s actions in the Israel-Hamas war,” explained Jones. “It could also be a reaction to Trump’s strong backing of Israel, highlighted in his meeting with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House earlier this month.”
The Gallup results line up with dozens of surveys released in recent years.
February also saw the release of an Economist/YouGov poll that found Americans are more supportive of the Palestinians than at anytime since at least 2017.
Again, the numbers were primarily driven by Democratic voters. 35% of them said they sympathized with with the Palestinians and just 9% said they sympathized with the Israelis.
The poll reveals that support for Israel has dipped considerably since the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack. 34% of Democrats said they sympathized more with the Israelis after the attack, while just 16% of them sympathized with Palestinians.
“In the seven-year history of Economist / YouGov polling on this question, Democratic sympathies for the Palestinians have never been this high relative to the share of Democrats who say they sympathize about equally with both sides, which has tended to be the largest group of Democrats,” the report’s authors note.
