Poll: More in US want aid to Palestinians
Findings may suggest shifting attitudes months into Israel-Hamas war
WASHINGTON – Americans are growing more sympathetic to Palestinians and want President Joe Biden to do more to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip as death, hunger and disease spread through the region after five months of the Israel-Hamas war.
Nearly half of American voters, 45%, believe Biden should pressure Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll shows.
“What is going on there is deplorable,” said Jana Pender, 67, a retired casino housekeeping worker from Detroit. “Children are dying.”
Though young voters have long agreed that Biden should do whatever it takes to ensure a cease-fire, the poll shows a growing consensus even among older Americans that Biden needs to do more.
Forty-nine percent of voters ages 18 to 34 said Biden needs to put more pressure on Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as did 48% of those ages 35 to 49. The percentages were only slightly smaller among older Americans (41% of those 50 to 64 and 43% of those 65 and older).
Views that Biden should do more to help the Palestinians are more widespread among Democrats (69%) and those who identify as independent/other (49%). Just 18% of Republicans share that belief.
The poll is the most recent to signal growing support for Palestinians.
Taken together, the polls could suggest the beginning of a more widespread shift in attitudes about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have implications for Biden in this year’s presidential election given his longstanding support for Israel.
“I think these polls are picking up that there’s an ongoing crisis in Gaza and that there needs to be a cease-fire before more people, more civilians, die,” said Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
Kamarck, who has studied the generation gap in American views toward Israel, said there were subtle signs that attitudes were shifting even before the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing nearly 1,200 people and triggering the war. The change wasn’t huge, she said, but constant news coverage of the latest conflict has kept it at the front of Americans’ minds.
“The way this war has been prosecuted is obviously causing great damage to Israel’s reputation,” she said.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says more than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
Conditions in Gaza have deteriorated badly after five months of intense bombing by Israel. The United States and Jordan have been airdropping food and other supplies amid reports of widespread starvation. The U.S. is also launching an emergency mission to establish a port on the Gaza coast that can receive large shipments of humanitarian aid.
Matt Williams, vice president of antisemitism research for the Anti-Defamation League, cautioned against interpreting the most recent poll results as a sign that public opinion is becoming more favorable toward Palestinians. The ADL, which works to combat antisemitism and extremism, has conducted multiple polls since the latest conflict began and hasn’t seen much overall change in attitudes toward Israel or the Palestinian people, Williams said.
“We still find, for example, relatively high support in the U.S. population for a two-state solution across the different demographic groups,” he said. “We still find relatively high support for Israel’s right to defend itself. And we also find relatively high concern for Palestinian civilians.”
Sarah Sabornie, 71, a retired nurse from Cary, North Carolina, is among those who believe that Israel should be supported but that more humanitarian aid must go to Palestinians in Gaza.
“They’re trying very hard to reach the people that are starving, that need medical help,” Sabornie said. But “the complexities of the Israeli-Hamas situation and everybody that’s suffering in both Israel and in Gaza – the waters get a little bit muddied at times.”
Matt Williams, 30, a middle and high school teacher from Sydney, New York, said Biden is in a tough situation.
“He’s kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” said Williams, who is not related to the ADL researcher. “Obviously, it’s horrible what’s happening to the Palestinian civilians. But at the same time, you have Hamas using them, even the Palestinian people, essentially as shields.”
Regarding the United States’ relationship with Israel, 34% of voters in the USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll said Biden should do more to support Israel’s security. The highest percentage of voters who held that view (41%) was those between ages 50 and 64. Just 26% of those ages 18 to 34 agreed.
The belief that more should be done to support Israel is highest among Republicans (60%). Just 18% of Democrats and 24% of independents/others expressed that view.
Williams, the teacher from New York, said that while humanitarian assistance is needed in Gaza, Hamas has taken some of the aid that has been sent into the area.
“It’s kind of hard to keep giving them aid if we know some of this aid might go to the wrong people,” he said. “I think our best avenue of approach for that would be working with the Israeli government to try to get them to stop bombing kids.”
Craig Richey, 62, a film and TV composer in Los Angeles, said Israel made “a huge, huge mistake” in responding the way that it did to the Hamas attacks.
Though there is no defense for Hamas’ attack on Israel, he said, “you can’t just go and carpet-bomb and wipe out basically … that whole area.”
“The decimation is horrible,” Richey said, “and I think Israel has done more harm to its future relationship with the Palestinians by its actions.”