Survey data published Thursday shows that U.S. voter support for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris would grow if she heeded calls to support an arms embargo against the Israeli military, whose Gaza assault has relied heavily on a steady supply of American weapons.
Commissioned by the Arab American Institute (AAI), the online poll of 2,505 American voters conducted between July 31 and August 1 found that 44% of U.S. voters would back Harris, 40% would support Republican nominee Donald Trump, and 11% would vote third party “if the election for president of the United States were held today.”
But if Harris were to endorse a suspension of U.S. arms shipments and diplomatic support for Israel “until there was a cease-fire and withdrawal of forces from Gaza,” her national support would grow from 44% to 49%.
A majority of Democratic voters say the Gaza crisis is either very or somewhat important in determining how they vote in November, according to the AAI poll.
The new survey, which has a margin of error of 2 percentage points, is consistent with an earlier poll commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project, which found that Harris would bolster her chances in key battleground states if she backed an arms embargo.
AAI’s poll came a week after Harris said in her first major television interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee that she does not support withholding military support for Israel, even as she acknowledged that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed” in Gaza.
If not for U.S. military support, Israel would likely not be able to keep up its large-scale assault on Gaza, which has resulted in mass starvation and the reemergence of polio. Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the Biden administration has delivered 50,000 tons of weaponry to Israel.
The U.S. and Germany together provide 99% of the weapons that Israel imports.
An unnamed senior official in Israel’s air force told Haaretz earlier this week that “without the Americans’ supply of weapons to the Israel Defense Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months.”
Harris has expressed support for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, but critics of U.S. policy argue an arms embargo is necessary to force Israel’s intransigent prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to stop sabotaging negotiations.
Earlier this week, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of human rights organizations argued that both U.S. and international law “require suspending weapons transfers to the Israeli government.”
“Your administration’s arming of the Israeli government,” the groups wrote, “has been and continues to be shockingly out of step with the realities of civilian harm and suffering in Gaza.”
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.