WASHINGTON (AP) — After a year of war between Israel and Hamas, U.S. public opinion on the conflict remains polarized, a recent poll from the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows, with Democrats more likely to do so are critical of Israel while Republicans remain more supportive.
There is relative consensus on some points – about half of U.S. adults, for example, say that Hamas bears “a lot” of responsibility for continuing the war, while about a quarter say it bears “some” responsibility, and about two say it bears “a lot” of responsibility for continuing the war out of ten Say it has “not much” or “no responsibility at all.”
But U.S. adults remain divided over the extent to which the Israeli government is responsible for the ongoing conflict. And the results suggest that the past year of war has not done much to widen or narrow the partisan divide that existed at the start of the conflict.
Democrats continue to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians than Republicans and are more critical of Israel, while Republicans are more sympathetic to the Israelis and view Israel as a U.S. ally that shares U.S. values and interests.
However, it is not clear from this poll whether public opinion will change if the war in the Middle East expands beyond Gaza. It was carried out from September 12 to 16, before the Israeli military significantly escalated its operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and before Iran fired rockets into Israel on Tuesday. Hamas, based in Gaza, and Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, are militant groups allied with Iran.
Americans largely don’t blame the U.S. government
President Joe Biden has maintained crucial U.S. military support to Israel throughout the Gaza war while repeatedly trying — and failing — to negotiate a ceasefire. Americans are most likely to place “a lot” of blame on Hamas for continuing the war between Israel and the militant group, followed by the Israeli government and the Iranian government and Iranian-backed groups.
They give their own country much less responsibility. Only about one in 10 Americans say the U.S. government bears “a lot” of responsibility for continuing the war between Israel and Hamas, while about four in 10 say it bears “some” responsibility, and 45% say that the US has “no” responsibility, “much” or no responsibility.
Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to say that the United States has “some” responsibility, but overall partisan differences on this issue are tiny.
Brian Grider, a 48-year-old Republican from Moscow, Ohio, isn’t sure how the U.S. could defuse the conflict.
“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do,” he said. “It would be nice if we could and we might want to try, but will it work? Probably not.”
Republicans are more likely to see Israel as an ally than Democrats
The year of fighting appears to have deepened partisan divisions over the war and U.S. relations with Israel.
About half of Republicans view Israel as a U.S. ally that shares its values and interests, while about half of Democrats believe Israel is a partner with whom the U.S. should work but who does not share American values and interests shares interests.
More than half of Democrats also say the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility for continuing the war, compared with about four in 10 Republicans.
Brian Becker, a 49-year-old Democrat from Colorado, says his views on the war changed after hearing more on social media about Palestinians and Palestinian Americans being harmed by the war.
“I felt like that wasn’t fair to them,” Becker said. “That changed my mind a little bit and started supporting Palestine in a way,” he said. “Before, I probably would have just said, ‘Yes, go to Israel.'”
On the other hand, about half of Republicans say they sympathize more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians, while Democrats are more likely to say they sympathize equally with both groups.
Grider, the Ohio Republican, believes Israel responded appropriately to the Oct. 7 attack, comparing it to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States
“I definitely don’t think Israel is doing too much in response to what happened to them,” he said.
General views on the war remain stable
Views on the Israel-Hamas conflict and the US role as mediator have changed little over the year.
Support for establishing an independent Palestinian state increased slightly, from about 2 in 10 in August 2023 to about 3 in 10 currently. (About half of Americans currently say they neither support nor oppose an independent Palestinian state, and about two in 10 oppose it.) There was also a slight enhance in the share of Americans who think the U.S. supports Israel too much.
But about four in 10 U.S. adults continue to say the U.S. is spending “too much” on military aid to Israel in the war, while a similar share say the U.S. is spending “the right amount.” About one in 10 say the U.S. is spending “too little,” according to an AP-NORC poll from early 2024.
Paul Poast, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and a research partner at the Pearson Institute, said the mix of U.S. opinions on the Gaza war reflects the complexity of a conflict in which Americans could see bad actors and innocent victims on both sides.
“That leads to people on both sides having very strong views, which of course we’ve seen,” Poast said. And it does not, he added, “lead to a consistent narrative of ‘We must support Israel’ or ‘We must support the Palestinians’.”
On October 7, Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took hostages, some of whom are still being held in Gaza. The Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. Gaza health authorities do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in the death toll, but say many of those killed were women and children.
Charles Jolivette, a 42-year-old Democrat from New Orleans who has raised concerns about the Israeli offensive through conversations with friends and colleagues of Palestinian descent, has observed a kind of echo chamber effect in which people on different sides of the issue only hear views, that reflect their own beliefs.
“But I would like to have more,” said Jolivette, referring to the exchange of views with people who see the conflict differently. And so that “not just the mainstream media, but also the mainstream American population, has the opportunity to have these real conversations.”
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The survey of 1,111 adults was conducted using a sample from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is intended to be representative of the U.S. population. The sampling error rate for all respondents is plus/minus 3.95 percentage points.
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Ellen Knickmeyer contributed.
