Particully Democrats and Independant Voters….
American sympathies in the Middle East have shifted dramatically toward the Palestinians, according to new Gallup polling, after decades of overwhelming support for the Israelis.
That shift accelerated during the war in Gaza. Three years ago, 54% of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis, compared with 31% for the Palestinians.
Now, their support is about evenly balanced, with 41% saying their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, and only 36% saying the same about the Israelis.
The numbers reflect how support for Israel has become deeply contentious in the U.S., with profound implications for American politics and foreign policy. The changing sentiment has been largely driven by Democrats, who are now much more likely to sympathize with Palestinians. U.S. assistance to Israel has been a major dividing line in the party’s primaries this year.
Gallup’s data indicates that the shift was already happening before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, then increased during Israel’s subsequent military operations in Gaza. The polling has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning sentiment toward Israelis and Palestinians are roughly even.
“It’s the first time they have reached parity, which is really quite striking,” said Benedict Vigers, a senior global news writer at Gallup. “In not many years, that very significant gap in public opinion has now completely closed…..
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Democrats and independents
About two-thirds of Democrats now say their concerns lie more with the Palestinians, while only about 2 in 10 sympathize more with the Israelis. As recently as 2016, the picture looked very different: About half of Democrats sympathized more with the Israelis and only about one-quarter sympathized with the Palestinians.
The shift began even before the Israel-Hamas war turned the issue into a flash point within the Democratic Party….
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Democrats’ sympathy for the Palestinians intensified as the war progressed, Gallup’s polling shows, and independents’ views also shifted. This year, independents expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis for the first time in Gallup’s trend. About 4 in 10 independents are more sympathetic toward the Palestinians. That’s compared to about 3 in 10 for the Israelis, a new low….
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Israel’s top court allows aid groups to keep working in Gaza as Israeli strikes kill 5 there
Israel’s top court will allow international aid groups to keep operating in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian territories
Israel had announced it will ban 37 aid groups by March 1 for not abiding by rules introduced last year that require aid groups to register names and contact information of employees, and provide details about their funding and operations….
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A U.S.-negotiated ceasefire reached in October has halted major military operations. But the two-year war triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel has left much of the territory in ruins and most of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians reliant on international aid.
Israel has also continued to strike what it says are militants, often killing civilians….
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