Topline Nearly a year has passed since Hamas’ attack on Israel sparked Israel’s retaliatory military campaign, which has escalated into a two-front conflict in Gaza and Lebanon, prompting a range of shifting opinions among Americans concerned about the bloodshed and the possibility of a larger Middle Eastern war.
Key Facts
According to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, Israel retaliated to Hamas’s Oct. 7 strike on Israel, killing almost 40,000 Palestinians.
Since last year, the United States has donated billions of dollars in aid to Israel and lobbied for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but just one brief cease-fire occurred last November, lasting only six days.
The United States, which has over 40,000 troops stationed in the Middle East, will send a few thousand more troops to the region as Israel targets Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, where over 2,000 people have died.
Do Americans support Israel’s war with Hamas?
According to a new Pew Research Center poll, roughly 3 in 10 Americans (31%) say Israel’s military operations in Gaza are going too far, a tiny rise from last December. The poll also reveals that a plurality of Americans, 36%, are unsure about Israel’s handling of its battle with Hamas. Meanwhile, 20% of Americans believe Israel is doing enough, while 12% believe Israel should be doing more—but both figures have dropped in the last ten months, from 25% and 16%, respectively.
Do Americans Want America to Be a Part of Winning This War?
According to a Pew Research Center survey, a greater percentage of Americans (61%) in September than in February believed that the United States should contribute to a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. According to the Pew Research Center, Republicans were less likely than Democrats to believe that the United States should not be involved in the diplomatic settlement of the war in September (25% vs. 13%). This is in contrast to the 21% of Democrats and 32% of Republicans who said this in February.
Who do Americans sympathize more with: Israelis or Palestinians?
According to a new survey conducted by the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 25% sympathize more with Israelis and 15% with Palestinians. The majority—31%—claimed to have equal compassion for both sides, while another 26% reported having no sympathy for either. These figures have also not altered significantly since before the attack on Israel last year.
What Do Americans Feel Should Happen If An Independent Palestinian State Were Created?
The Associated Press-NORC study revealed an increase in the proportion of Americans who support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, up to roughly 29% currently compared to 22% before the Oct. 7 assaults, in August 2023. A little over half of those surveyed in the United States stated they were neither in favor of nor against an independent state (down from 58% in August 2023), with 17% disagreeing, roughly unchanged from 15% in 2023.
How Do Americans Feel About the US Providing Military Aid to Israel?
According to the Pearson and AP study, around four out of ten Americans believe the United States spends too much money on military aid to Israel, which is similar with polls from February and November.
Do Americans Fear a Serious Regional Conflict in the Middle East?
According to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted a year ago, even before the Oct. 7 attack—and Israel’s two-front war in Gaza and Lebanon—a staggering 79% of Americans were either concerned or very concerned that the Israel-Hamas battle might spark a wider Middle East conflict.
Important Phrase
With reference to Paul Poast, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and research affiliate of the Pearson Institute, the Associated Press stated that “the mix of U.S. opinions on the Gaza war reflects the complexity of a conflict where Americans may see bad actors and innocent victims on both sides.” The subtleties of the battle, according to Poast, have given rise to “very strong views on both sides.”
Important Background
Despite not placing American soldiers on the ground in Gaza or Lebanon, the United States has continued to play a significant role in the Israel-Hamas conflict. In the past year, President Joe Biden has proposed several ceasefires, most of which have fallen short of expectations. He has also attempted to balance backing Israel’s war against Hamas with offering humanitarian aid to the Gazan people, who are still subject to Israeli strikes, starvation, and widespread displacement. Iran fired missiles at Israel this week in retaliation for Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, demonstrating the relevance of American concerns about a wider battle in the Middle East. Biden has maintained pressing for ceasefires as the Conflicts grow, but it is uncertain how much impact the United States will have on Israeli military actions, given that the two partners have appeared to be on opposing sides several times in the recent year. The White House stated last month that it was not told of Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, which killed longstanding Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and prompted retaliation strikes from Iran.
