An overwhelming majority of voters favor the U.S. taking a diplomatic or humanitarian response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza rather than sending more unconditional aid to Israel’s far right government and military, new polling finds.
According to Data for Progress polling of likely U.S. voters conducted in the days surrounding the start of the pause in the bombardment of Gaza in November, 61 percent of voters support de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, including 76 percent of Democrats, 57 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans, a plurality.
When asked what path they think U.S. officials should take in response to the assault, choosing all options that applied, voters strongly supported either using diplomacy to encourage Israel to begin a ceasefire in order to pursue the release of hostages, at 49 percent, and/or sending humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, at 31 percent.
Even though Biden administration officials and members of Congress have been insistent upon sending billions of dollars to Israel in military and logistical assistance, the polling finds that voters do not favor this idea. Only 24 percent of respondents said that they think sending additional aid to Israel should be a priority.
Meanwhile, if the U.S. does choose to send assistance, the poll found that most voters say it should come with conditions in order to ensure that the aid isn’t being used to commit crimes against humanity. Sixty-three percent of voters said they agreed that the U.S. should only provide Israel with military aid “if they meet our standard for human rights,” including 76 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans, again a plurality.
Conditioning aid to Israel has been a much-debated and widely disfavored proposal in D.C., despite its popularity among the public.
Biden administration officials have vowed not to draw red lines in the U.S.’s assistance to Israel, and the White House has moved to create what experts have said would be a “free-flowing pipeline” of weapons to Israel amid its genocidal military campaign in Gaza; this is on top of the fact that the U.S. is already the Israeli military’s top benefactor and has provided the country with many of the weapons that have been used in its current siege of Gaza.
Meanwhile, extremely few members of Congress, among them Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), have called for military aid to Israel to meet basic humanitarian standards — despite the fact that foreign aid is barred by U.S. law from being used for human rights violations.
However, the strong support for a ceasefire and Palestinian rights among the public appears to be steadily changing the minds of some lawmakers. Polling has continually affirmed that Americans support a ceasefire, while support for President Joe Biden and Israel has been falling fast as Israel continues its slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians. And supporters for Palestinian liberation have been flooding phone lines of Democrats in Congress for months now.
Seemingly as a result, or perhaps just in reaction to the utterly horrific reports coming out of Gaza each day, more lawmakers have been joining calls for a ceasefire each week. As of Monday, 60 House and Senate Democrats had spoken up in favor of a ceasefire, representing about 11 percent of Congress, according to The Intercept’s Prem Thakker. Though this is still a small minority of Congress, it is a major increase from the roughly a dozen lawmakers who supported a ceasefire seven weeks ago.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri), who originally introduced a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the House on October 16, has encouraged people to continue contacting their representatives to ask them to back the proposal or thank them for doing so.
“When we introduced the Ceasefire Now Resolution, only 13 members of Congress supported it. The outcry in favor of humanity has been overwhelming,” Bush wrote on social media last week, noting the marked increase in lawmakers joining the call over the past weeks. “Your calls, emails, and protests are working.”
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.