U.S. opinion has swung toward Israel. A long war could test that

The Hamas attack on Israel has accomplished something few other events have achieved in the last decade — creating a wide consensus in America’s otherwise deeply divided political landscape.

Political debate in the U.S. feeds on outrage, so a disproportionate amount of attention, especially on social media, has focused on a relative handful of pro-Hamas statements, including some on college campuses. That has tended to obscure the unusual amount of political agreement.

But from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the left to Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right, elected officials have denounced Hamas. President Biden and congressional Republican leaders, at odds on nearly every issue, have called for stepped up aid to Israel, with Biden labeling the Hamas attack “unadulterated evil.” And public opinion in both parties has swung in Israel’s direction.

Whether such unquestioning and overwhelming support is wise remains to be seen — insufficient debate can sometimes lead countries into major blunders, as the U.S. discovered in the Iraq War. Nor is it clear how long the consensus will last — a ground assault on Gaza, which Israel appears to be planning, could be long and bloody, and shift opinion again.

For now, however, the near-unity is having an impact. Administration officials hope to take advantage of the moment to get new aid to Israel through Congress, perhaps packaged with assistance to Ukraine and added security measures for the U.S. southern border. If that strategy works, it will provide an example of how a foreign shock can sometimes break partisan logjams in Washington.

A battle for U.S. public opinion

Most Americans, most of the time, don’t pay much attention to the Mideast and its seemingly intractable quarrels.

When warfare breaks out in the region, news organizations usually focus on American Jews and Muslims to gauge their reaction. Both groups, however, are small: Jews make up about 2% of the U.S. population, and the Muslim population is less.

The battle for U.S. public opinion largely takes place among other groups.

A large share of the U.S. public supports Israel. Gallup, which has surveyed public opinion on the Mideast for many years, has found that in the past few years, just over half of American adults said their sympathies lay mostly with Israel, while about one in four sympathized more with the Palestinians.

Support for Israel has been especially strong among conservative, evangelical Christians, a group that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies have carefully courted. Sympathy for Israel also rose significantly among all Republicans during former President Trump‘s tenure as he tied himself tightly to Netanyahu and the Israeli right.

A split among Democrats

That political alliance, coming after years of tension between Netanyahu and President Obama, brought warnings in both countries that Netanyahu risked making American support for Israel a partisan issue. That proved true: Sympathy for the Palestinians rose notably over the last decade with much of the movement coming among Democrats, the political left and younger Americans.

That shift has generated divisive debates among Democrats, especially in large urban areas where a resurgent left has gained support in recent years.

In 2022, support for Israel surfaced as an issue in Democratic primaries, often pitting younger insurgents against an older, more firmly pro-Israel Democratic establishment. With Biden strongly in the pro-Israel camp, the issue has hovered in the background of Democratic politics as one of the party’s recurring generational splits.

A sharp shift

The Hamas attacks — with their huge death toll, including 27 Americans, the taking of hostages and reports of multiple atrocities — have abruptly changed that picture.

A poll taken Sunday through Tuesday by YouGov for the Economist found that support for Israel had jumped 11 percentage points compared with its previous level. The share saying they sympathized equally with both sides and the share supporting the Palestinians both dropped.

Although younger Americans and liberals remain less sympathetic to Israel than older Americans and conservatives, the shift toward Israel occurred at all ages and across ideological groups, the poll found.

Just 10% of Americans said the Israelis were more to blame for the renewed violence while 39% blamed Palestinians. About 1 in 5 blamed both sides equally, the poll found.

The survey also found that by 53%-23%, Americans supported U.S. aid to Israel. By contrast, Americans opposed aid to the Palestinians by 49%-21%.

Among elected officials, who tend to have keen antennae for changes in public opinion, even longtime critics of Israel have been quick to condemn Hamas.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), for example, issued a statement shortly after the Hamas attack that condemned what she called “the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas.”

White House rebuke

Omar and a few other Democrats on the left, including Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Cori Bush of Missouri, also called for “de-escalation and a cease-fire.”

Even that limited call for restraint drew a rebuke from the White House and other Democrats, who defended Israel’s decision to retaliate against Hamas.

“Israel did not ask America to de-escalate on Sept. 12, 2001,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), said at a pro-Israel rally in Boston on Monday.

Asked on Tuesday about calls for a cease-fire, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “We believe they are wrong, we believe they’re repugnant, and we believe they’re disgraceful.”

“Our condemnation belongs squarely with terrorists who have brutally murdered, raped, kidnapped hundreds — hundreds of Israelis. There can be no equivocation about that. There are not two sides here,” she said.

Groups further on the left that have taken pro-Palestinian positions have found themselves isolated by the sudden shift.

The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, helped promote a pro-Palestinian rally in New York’s Times Square on Sunday in which participants cheered references to rocket attacks on Israel. That drew condemnations from elected officials associated with the DSA, including Ocasio-Cortez.

By Tuesday, the group appeared to back away from its support for the rally. Already, however, affiliation with the Democratic Socialists has become a campaign issue in some races in New York and in city council contests in Los Angeles.

Outlook in Congress

In Congress, the war has put pressure on Republican leaders to bring an Israel aid measure to the floor. That hasn’t been possible so far because Republicans have been unable to agree on a candidate to replace Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) as speaker, leaving the House paralyzed. But the House could work around that if members insist on taking a vote.

If that happens, the rush by elected officials to be seen as supporting Israel could prove strong enough even to overcome a dysfunctional Congress.

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