The American public’s support for Israel is stronger than ever and even increasing, the latest poll on the subject shows.
A new poll published by Gallup on Monday shows that the vast majority of Americans decisively support Israel, with six in 10 Americans sympathizing more with Israelis than the Palestinians.
The poll, conducted by telephone interviews at the beginning of the month with a random sample of 1,021 adults, showed that Americans’ views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remained steady over the past year, with 62% of Americans saying their sympathies lie more with the Israelis and only 15% favoring the Palestinians.
About one in four continue to be neutral, including 9% who sympathize with neither side, 3% who sympathize with both, and 11% expressing no opinion.
Americans have consistently shown more support for Israel than for the Palestinians over the past 15 years, Gallup’s numbers show, with sympathy for the Jewish State increasing in 2006 to 59%, from 52% the year before when the Palestinians gave the Hamas terror organization a victory in their elections.
Support for Israel has since remained at 58% or higher.
All major demographic and political subgroups of Americans lean toward Israel over the Palestinians on this question, but the numbers vary when broken down by religious preference and party identification.
Gallup found a 31-percentage-point difference in sympathy for Israel between Protestants (72%) and nonreligious Americans (41%), and a 26-point difference between Republicans (79%) and Democrats (53%).
That contrasts with a 19-point difference between highly religious and nonreligious Americans, and an 18-point difference between older and younger Americans.
Separately, Gallup measured Americans’ favorability toward Israel and the Palestinian Authority individually. The results are similar to the “sympathies” split, with 71% of Americans holding a very or mostly favorable view of Israel, versus only 19% viewing the Palestinian Authority (PA) favorably.
American’s Support for Palestinians Slipping
On the question relating to the support of a possible independent Palestinian state, only by a slight margin of 44% to 37%, more Americans favor than oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. These results are in line with what Gallup has measured since 2013; however, there were larger margins in favor of a Palestinian state in most prior years, and the Palestinians are losing support over time.
On this question, the two political parties have substantively different views, with 58% of Democrats supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state, compared with 26% of Republicans.
Gallup concludes its poll by saying that Americans have become more sympathetic toward Israel over the past 15 years, and that the more pro-Israel view held steady in the past year.
While Republicans show extraordinarily high support for Israel — an affinity evident at the Republican presidential debate in Houston last week, where every candidate professed his strong support for the Jewish state — the majority of Democrats and independents are “also on the same page.”
By: United with Israel Staff