A plurality of U.S. voters believe that Israel should stop its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Tuesday, even as many remain broadly sympathetic to the foreign nation.
Forty-four percent of American voters say that Israel should stop the military campaign, while only 39% believe it should continue. The poll also found that just 30% of voters believe Israel is “taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties,” while 48% believe the country is not taking enough steps.
The results show how the military campaign in Gaza — launched in response to an Oct. 7 attack by the militant group Hamas, which killed over 1,000 people in Israel — has strained typically steadfast American support for the country, especially among demographics core to the success of the Democratic Party.
Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 20,000 people, and caused widespread shortages of food and power in Gaza — the small piece of land ruled by Hamas, which itself was propped up by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to decrease chances for a two-state solution in the region.
Three-fifths of Democratic voters believe that Israel’s military campaign should end, compared with 48% of independent voters and 24% of Republicans. One of the biggest divisions is by age: Just 33% of voters over 65 want the campaign to end, compared with two-third of voters ages 18 to 29. Majorities of Black and Hispanic voters also believe that Israel should end the campaign.
At the same time, the poll shows that a majority of American voters still broadly support the Israeli cause: 47% say they are relatively more sympathetic to Israel, while just 20% sympathize more with the Palestinians. A 54% majority supports sending more military and economic aid to Israel, while 38% oppose.
And despite Netanyahu’s recent admission that he has been working to undermine a two-state solution for decades, Americans think that Israel is more committed to peace than the Palestinians. Forty-five percent of voters believe that Israel is interested in a peaceful solution to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared with just 34% who say the same of the Palestinians.
Miriam Alster via Associated Press
The poll finds relatively little evidence, however, to support the idea that President Joe Biden’s support for Israel, which he has mixed with so-far ineffective admonishments to minimize civilian casualties, is causing him intractable political problems.
Biden’s approval rating on his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — 33% approve, while 57% disapprove — is only slightly worse than his overall job approval, which stands at 37% approval to 58% disapproval.
It’s also unclear if a different approach would have resulted in a more supportive electorate: Among those who disapprove of his handling of the conflict, 22% said his balance of support between Israel and Palestinians was “about right,” while 19% said he was too supportive of Israel and 16% said he was too supportive of the Palestinians.
Moreover, the poll found that just 1% of Americans named the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East as the most important issue facing the country today. Roughly one-third said their top issue was inflation or the economy, while 10% said immigration, 7% said division in the U.S., and 7% said democracy or corruption.
The poll also found the most likely 2024 presidential matchup to be exceedingly close: Former President Donald Trump leads Biden among registered voters by a margin of 46% to 44%, while Biden has a lead of 47% to 45% among likely voters.
The Times and Siena College conducted the survey of 1,016 registered voters from Dec. 10 to 14. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.