What Americans think about the war in Gaza, a year after the Oct. 7 attacks
It’s been a year since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing at least 1,200 Israelis and capturing about 250 hostages — nearly 100 of whom remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 33 who are no longer believed to be alive, according to Israeli officials. Since then, Israel’s military response has killed at least 41,000 Gazans, most of them women and children, and Israel has also been engaged in escalating clashes over the past year with Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran.
Most recently, Iranian missile strikes against Israel just last week prompted Israeli airstrikes and an invasion of Lebanon and threatened to plunge the region into a wider war. In light of the latest attacks, President Joe Biden and Harris have condemned Iran and reiterated their support for Israel — once again raising the issue of U.S. involvement in the conflict, a hot-button topic over the past year.
The American public has long been generally supportive of Israel, and was largely in favor of sending U.S. military aid to Israel at the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, but polling since then suggests that support has fallen as the war drags on — instead, many Americans are worried about the harshness of the Israeli government’s response to the attacks, and want the U.S. government to help broker a diplomatic end to the conflict.
Americans still support Israel, but sympathize with Palestine too
Last year, a 538 analysis found that sympathy for Israelis spiked soon after the attacks despite a longer-term trend of increasing sympathy for Palestinians, especially among Democrats and independents. In an average of polls at the time, a solid plurality of around half of Americans said they sympathized more with Israelis than they did with Palestinians (or with both/neither party).
Today, Americans are more split on who they sympathize with. In a AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll from Sept. 12-16, 25 percent leaned more toward Israelis, while 15 percent said they sympathized more with Palestinians, 31 percent answered both equally, and 26 percent said neither.
Part of that change has been driven by an increasing number of Americans who feel that Israel’s military actions in the conflict have been too harsh. About a week after the Oct. 7 attack, a YouGov/The Economist poll found that a plurality of 32 percent of Americans thought Israel’s response to the attack was “about right” and 22 percent thought it was not harsh enough, while 18 percent thought it was too harsh:
As the Gazan civilian death toll has mounted, however, attitudes have shifted to be more critical of Israel. A YouGov/The Economist poll fielded in late September found that 32 percent now think the Israeli government’s response has been too harsh, while 22 percent think it has been about right and 17 percent think it has been not harsh enough. Other polling suggests even more Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions, though the number may not have shifted drastically since last year: For example, 42 percent of Americans thought the Israeli military’s response had gone too far in the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll, which was two points higher than the share in a similar AP-NORC poll from November of 2023.
That’s all despite the fact that most Americans have consistently viewed Hamas, rather than Israel, as primarily responsible for the conflict. Nearly 60 percent said Hamas is the “main culprit” in the current conflict in an Atlas poll from Sept. 11-12, while 14 percent blamed Israel (and the rest said they didn’t know). But when given the option, Americans held other actors responsible as well: The September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll found that around three-quarters of Americans thought the Israeli government, Hamas and the Iranian government each bore at least some of the responsibility for the continuation of the Israel-Hamas conflict — though a larger share said Hamas bore “a lot” of the responsibility (52 percent, compared to 44 percent who said the same of the Israeli government).
American support for military aid has dropped
The Israel-Hamas conflict has had more than a few effects on politics here at home, as different groups clashed over U.S. support for Israel — the United States has sent more than $12 billion in military aid to Israel since the attacks — in the face of a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Whether and how the U.S. should continue sending aid to Israel is a question that has proved a political minefield for American leaders.
In May, Biden paused a weapons shipment to Israel to discourage its offensive against the Gaza city of Rafah — a move that prompted most House Republicans and a handful of Democrats to vote and pass a bill that would condemn the decision and push the deal through (though the move was purely symbolic without support from the Democratic Senate majority). But while Republicans have been outspoken in their criticism of the administration’s handling of the conflict, the Israel-Hamas conflict is also unfolding at a time when Donald Trump has continued to push the Republican Party toward a significantly more isolationist view toward world affairs.
On the other side of the aisle, tensions over U.S. aid to Israel helped fuel the Uncommitted National Movement, a protest movement to pressure the Biden administration to commit to a ceasefire and an arms embargo against Israel. The group publicly declined to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election based on her perceived inaction on the issue, and intraparty fighting over Israel played a role in costing two progressive members of Congress their seats in party primaries. (For her part, Harris has called for a ceasefire and said she would work toward a two-state solution.)
The public’s views on U.S. military aid to Israel have shifted over the course of the conflict. In YouGov/The Economist polling over the past year, the share of Americans who think the U.S. should increase its military aid to Israel has decreased over time, from 24 percent in November 2023 to 18 percent in September 2024. Over the same time period, the share who felt the U.S. should send more humanitarian aid to Palestinians has increased from 26 percent to 32 percent:
As a look at congressional funding fights over the past year could tell you, money is a big part of this. In the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll, 41 percent thought the U.S. was spending too much aiding Israel. Moreover, 38 percent think that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, according to the most recent YouGov/The Economist poll — bolstering the arguments that Uncommitted and other pro-Palestinian protestors have used to call for restrictions to ensure U.S. military aid cannot be used against Gazan civilians.
However, Americans remain invested in the U.S. helping resolve the conflict in some manner, according to the September AP-NORC/Pearson Institute poll: While only 27 percent said it was extremely or very important that the U.S. aid Israel’s military against Hamas and 42 percent said the same of providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, 57 percent wanted the U.S. to play a role in recovering getting the remaining hostages held in Gaza by Hamas released, and 52 percent wanted the U.S. to help negotiate a permanent ceasefire. A Pew Research Center survey last month also found that 61 percent of Americans want the U.S. to play a “major” role in diplomatically resolving the conflict, up from 55 percent in February.
That trend could continue in light of current events. As Israel has pressed further into Lebanon, foreign countries have begun evacuating their citizens, and Israel and Iran have both threatened harsh retaliation against further attacks. Just over half of Americans think it is fairly or very likely the conflict will spread to a wider regional war according to the late September YouGov/The Economist poll (and 12 percent say it already has).
When it comes to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, Trump had an advantage on the issue of handling the Israel-Hamas war, with 52 percent in a late September Fox News poll saying they trusted him more, compared to 45 percent who picked Harris. In the September YouGov/The Economist poll, 31 percent said Trump’s stance in the conflict was “about right,” compared to only 22 percent who said the same of Harris.
That said, both Trump and Harris may actually have some room for persuasion here: Many Americans were unclear about both candidates’ approaches to the current conflict — 37 percent in the same poll said they were “not sure” whether Harris had been too supportive of Israel, not supportive enough or about right, and 38 percent said the same of Trump.
Overall, Trump’s advantage over Harris could be a reflection on the fact that Trump is out of office and not currently making decisions regarding the conflict, or the fact that he has repeatedly claimed to be the most pro-Israel president in history, appealing to the pro-Israel stance shared by most of his base. In contrast, Harris faces pressure from both wings of her own party, and her role in the current administration could pose a challenge to her campaign if the conflict continues to escalate and the U.S. struggles to respond.
Cooper Burton contributed research.
