Almost two years into the Israel-Hamas war, a majority of U.S. voters no longer say that supporting the Jewish state is in America’s national interest.
In the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, 47% of registered voters said supporting Israel is in the national interest of the United States, while 41% said it is not. (Some 12% didn’t share an opinion.)
While still a plurality, that support is a far cry from the 69% in December 2023—two months after Oct. 7—who said that backing Israel is in the U.S. national interest. (Some 23% said at the time that it was not.)
“It shows that the grinding of the war has also ground down American popular support for Israel,” Democratic consultant Joel Rubin, executive director of the Jewish Electorate Institute, told JNS.
A significant change between December 2023 and now is the loss of support among Democratic and independent voters. In 2023, 68% of Democrats and 65% of independents agreed that backing Israel was in America’s national interest. Now, 36% of Democrats and 37% of independents do. Even among Republicans, support slipped from 81% to 75%.
“For years, you could travel to any political event—Democrat or Republican—and say, ‘I stand with Israel,’ and it was an automatic applause line,” Republican Jewish Coalition spokesman Sam Markstein told JNS. “If you tried that today at a Democrat event, you would be booed off the stage.”
Republicans, on the other hand, “know it is in America’s interest to stand resolutely with our friends like Israel,” he said.
Guy Ziv, associate professor at American University and associate director of its Meltzer Schwartzberg Center for Israel Studies, blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s drop in public opinion among American voters.
“This stems from ongoing frustration with Netanyahu’s Gaza war,” Ziv told JNS. “People are very disturbed by the images they see, and it’s clear that he has so far been scuttling the ceasefire negotiations.”
Half of U.S. voters in an August Quinnipiac poll said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza based on what they knew about the situation in Gaza, and 35% said it was not.
“There’s no question that the Gaza war and the designation by some that what they’re seeing is genocide is fueling this, with no end in sight,” Ziv said. (Israeli and U.S. officials have said that the charge that Israel is committing genocide is false and a blood libel.)
The latest Quinnipiac survey reported that 49% of U.S. voters had an unfavorable opinion of Netanyahu, with 21% viewing him favorably. Another 28% said they hadn’t heard enough about him to express an opinion.
Netanyahu had positive ratings among Republicans, 47% to 20%, but was underwater with Democrats (70% unfavorable to 4% favorable) and independents (58% negative and 14% positive).
“Since the establishment of his sixth government in December 2022, Netanyahu has pretty consistently put the survival of his coalition over every other consideration,” Ziv said. “Israel is increasingly becoming a pariah state as a result of Netanyahu’s approach.”
Voters also rejected the way U.S. President Donald Trump, a strong ally of Netanyahu’s, is handling the war. More than half of those polled—56%—disapproved of his actions, with just 31% in support. (Some 71% of Republicans approved, compared to 4% of Democrats and 21% of independents.)
Rubin, the Democratic consultant, told JNS that a key question is whether the traditional bipartisan support for Israel has frayed permanently, or whether the poll numbers were a reaction to what was happening now.
“Is this a blip on the radar screen, because there’s unhappiness with an ongoing war and scenes of death, or is this more than just a blip but a reorienting?” he said. “That is the critical question.”
Should a ceasefire take hold and progress be made toward a resolution of the Middle East crisis, it would be just a blip, Rubin and Ziv told JNS.
“We don’t know how deeply felt these sentiments are,” Ziv said. “This could just be a measure of people’s frustrations and the war that has gone on for nearly two years with no end in sight.”
“That could change with a ceasefire and progress toward a settlement,” he said. “An end to the war, coupled with a viable post-war plan for the Palestinians in Gaza, assuming Israel cooperates, could change the consideration.”
