Support for Israel is cratering fast among the American public amid Israeli forces’ genocidal siege of Gaza, while a majority of Americans support the growing calls for a ceasefire, new polling reveals.
According to polling by Reuters/Ipsos released Wednesday, support for Israel among the U.S. public has dropped by nearly 10 percent in the past month. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken shortly after the current siege began last month, 41 percent said that the U.S. should back Israel in its attack. Now, in a two-day poll that ended Tuesday, less than a third of respondents, or just 32 percent, said the same. This drop was seen among both Democrats and Republicans.
Further, the poll found that 39 percent of Americans think that the U.S. “should be a neutral mediator,” a 12 percent increase in the number who think so since last month. The number who said that the U.S. should support Palestinians, however, remained the same as the last poll at just 4 percent, while 15 percent said the U.S. should not involve itself.
Meanwhile, support for a ceasefire is strong among the public, with 68 percent of respondents saying that they support the idea, including about 75 percent of Democrats and about half of Republicans. This is roughly the same finding as a poll by Data for Progress released last month, which found that 66 percent of likely U.S. voters support a ceasefire, with 80 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans in agreement.
At least 11,240 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 amid Israel’s current ruthless bombardment of Gaza, including at least 4,630 children, while 27,490 Palestinians have been injured. Thousands more are missing under the rubble as Israel has leveled entire neighborhoods with its bombings. Israeli forces are also carrying out increased incursions in the occupied West Bank, killing at least 183 Palestinians so far and arresting thousands.
Israel’s carnage in Gaza could be responsible for the turning of public opinion as hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets in protest of Israel’s current ethnic cleansing campaign in what is likely the largest wave of pro-Palestinian solidarity protests ever seen in the U.S. and across the world. At the same time, however, government officials and private and public institutions have been increasingly trying to repress such speech in what observers are saying is a resurgence of McCarthyism.
U.S. officials have thus far failed to heed protesters’ calls for a ceasefire, and the U.S. is instead ramping up its weapons transfers to Israel — and is doing so in secrecy, reports have found.
The Reuters/Ipsos polling found that these weapons deals are unpopular among the public. A plurality of respondents, 43 percent, said that they oppose sending weapons to Israel, while only 31 percent supported the idea. The remaining respondents said they were unsure.
The poll suggests that top U.S. officials and lawmakers, who have stood nearly uniformly in support of Israel for decades now, are greatly out of step with the American public on the issue. Only a few dozen lawmakers in Congress have publicly supported a ceasefire, while Biden administration officials have actually doubled down on their support of Israel’s bloody conquest in recent weeks.