'Not superficial': Support for Palestinians in US surpasses sympathy for Israelis
'Not superficial': Support for Palestinians in US surpasses sympathy for Israelis Submitted by Yasmine El-Sabawi on Fri, 02/27/2026 - 17:51 Analysts attribute shift to Israel's atrocities in Gaza and Palestinian bridge-building over decades Demonstrators gather outside the Donald J Trump Institute for Peace on the day of the inaugural meeting of the 'Board of Peace', in Washington, DC, on 19 February 2026 (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) Off For the first time in nearly a quarter century of polling on the issue, Americans sympathise with Palestinians more than Israelis, Gallup revealed on Friday. That shift has been tracked among all age groups, and not just young people, Gallup said. Forty-one percent of those surveyed said their sympathies lay with Palestinians, while 36 percent said it was Israelis. While the five-point gap is "not statistically significant", Gallup said, it is a stark departure from a 24-year period when Israelis consistently maintained a clear lead over Palestinians. Ten percent said they have no opinion. Nine percent said they do not sympathise with either side, and four percent said they sympathise with both sides equally. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The highest sympathies for Palestinians are among Democrats at 65 percent, with only 17 percent of support for Israelis - the largest gap among the surveyed groups. Gallup has previously shown that Democrats were already trending in that direction since 2023, after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli genocide in Gaza, in which at least 72,081 Palestinians have been killed - a figure seen as an undercount by experts. “This poll should be a wake-up call for Democratic leaders. Their policy of unwavering support for - and complicity in - Israel’s atrocities in Gaza is alienating their own voters," Reed Brody, a veteran war crimes prosecutor and Counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Middle East Eye in a written statement. 'The suppression of speech [and] racism practised by Israel... These are things that Americans recognise’ - Nizar Farzakh, George Washington University "If the party fails to recognize how deeply this issue matters to many Americans, especially young people, it risks deepening a generational and political divide that has already cost them - and the country - one historic election.” Gallup's survey results come just days after a leaked autopsy of the 2024 presidential election by Democratic officials concluded that Kamala Harris lost meaningful support because of the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israel's conduct in Gaza. "Democrats should recognize that support for Palestinian rights is the moral thing to do and an electoral asset, and wield it in the upcoming elections," a spokesperson with the IMEU Policy Project told MEE in a written statement. "There is perhaps no greater gap in American politics between our politicians and the voters than on the issue of continually funding Israel’s military with our tax dollars." Building bridges According to Gallup, independent voters drove the boost in support for Palestinians in 2026. Forty-one percent of independents said they sympathise more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, whereas in all prior years, Gallup noted, they were more sympathetic towards the Israelis, including by 42 percent to 34 percent last year. Palestinian activist sues Betar USA for violation of civil rights Read More » Nizar Farzakh, a former adviser to senior Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and a lecturer at George Washington University, attributed Friday's poll numbers not just to the fallout from Israel's actions in Gaza, but also to the alliances that advocates for Palestine have built over the last two decades in particular. They built bridges with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, movements like Black Lives Matter, as well as Jewish Voice for Peace, among others. "The alliance is not superficial; it's actually organic. That connection helped associate the Palestinians with the working class... while Israel is the elites," he told MEE. The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, he said, "focused on a rights-based campaign [which] allowed for a much larger conversation". "The suppression of speech [and] racism practised by Israel... These are things that Americans recognise," Farzakh said. Among Republicans, Gallup showed that 70 percent sympathise with Israelis, but even that is a 10-point decline from 2004, marking the lowest level of support in 22 years. Only 13 percent of Republicans sympathise with Palestinians. 'Not surprising' Altogether, despite the shifts, the most support for Israelis is still among those aged 55 and older at 49 percent, compared to 31 percent for Palestinians. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Fifty-three percent of those aged 18 to 34 sympathise with Palestinians compared to 23 percent for Israelis, which is a new low for this group, Gallup noted. But it's among those aged 35 to 54 where there has been a "near-reversal" of the numbers from 2025, Gallup said. 'I believe a lot of Americans are seeing an ugly face of Israel that they've not seen or perceived in the past' - Bishara Bahbah, Palestinian-American academic Forty-six percent said they sympathise more with Palestinians, compared with 28 percent for Israelis. Last year, it was 45 percent for Israelis and 33 percent for Palestinians. "The results are not surprising," Bishara Bahbah, an academic and former Democrat who pivoted to President Donald Trump's campaign in 2024, and later became part of the administration's backchannel talks with Hamas, told MEE. "I believe a lot of Americans are seeing an ugly face of Israel that they've not seen or perceived in the past, and that reflects in their attitudes," he said. "Many of the candidates running for various offices around the country are saying... 'We are not accepting any funds from Aipac'," using an acronym for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Aipac is one of the most powerful and well-funded pro-Israel lobbying groups in the US. It has shelled out tens of millions of dollars to support candidates who can counter the trend of young people running for office in the 2026 midterm elections in November, who are making a point of saying they are "America First" and not "Israel First". They are Democrats, Republicans, and independents. "No matter how much you dump money into a campaign, at the end of the day, what elects people are votes," Bahbah said. "And those votes are shifting toward a more equitable view of the Israel-Palestine conflict." Tariq Kenney-Shawa, US policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, told MEE that while the shift among Americans is "significant", it has "proven to be not enough to save Palestinians". (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The attitudes have yet to translate into policy change that ends with the conditioning or cutting of US aid to Israel, he said. "Advocates for Palestinian rights will now have to focus on how to translate passive sympathies for Palestinians into active opposition to Israel." The land When asked to rate the favourability of the Palestinian territories and the favourability of the State of Israel in separate questions, Gallup noted that Israel’s favourable rating has now declined to near its historical low - 45 percent - measured in 1989. Israel had its highest rating in 1991 at 79 percent. It has only come close to that figure once in the last three decades: 2021 at 75 percent, before its attack on Gaza later that year. Ratings of the Palestinian territories, on the other hand, have improved to a new high point at 37 percent this year, from 18 percent just two years ago. Contrary to US policy, ambassador Huckabee says West Bank's Area C 'is Israel' Read More » Israel currently sits at 46 percent favourability. When it comes to the "two-state solution" - a decades-long US policy that the Trump administration no longer publicly recognises - there has been little change among Americans, most of whom continue to back the proposal at 57 percent. Twenty-eight percent oppose it, while 15 percent do not have an opinion, Gallup said. The policy, spurred by the 1993 Oslo Accords, refers to an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. While theoretically possible, it has become practically impossible given Israel's ever-expanding settlements and its moves to now annex the entirety of the occupied West Bank. Half of Gaza is also under complete control of Israeli forces. Support for the two-state solution is highest among Democrats at 77 percent, and lowest among Republicans at 33 percent. That 44-point gap is the widest Gallup has ever recorded on this question. "This administration is not publicly supporting a two-state solution, because they do not want to make it appear that it is a reward for Hamas's actions," Bahbah told MEE. "In my opinion, you have to support the two-state solution on its merits and not necessarily on the action of one party," he added. "I believe the president - when it comes down to it - does not have anything against a two-state solution. He's not a Zionist. He's not a dogmatic individual. He's a pragmatist. And if it takes a two-state solution to achieve a real peace, I believe the president would support it." Galup's results are based on 1,001 telephone interviews of US adults aged 18 and over, conducted by ReconMR between 2 and 16 February 2026. The margin of error is +/-4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. Israel's genocide in Gaza Washington News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0