Should US arm Israel? Send humanitarian aid to Gaza? What Americans said in new polls

President Joe Biden, in a prime-time Oval Office address on Oct. 19, called on Congress to send an “unprecedented” military aid package to Israel, which has declared war on Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip.

By the same token, he urged Israel to safeguard civilian lives while it besieges and bombards Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinian inhabitants, 4,137 of whom have been killed, including over 1,661 children, according to Palestinian officials.

Biden also said he reached an agreement with regional leaders to send United Nations humanitarian assistance to Gaza’s Palestinian civilians. The day before his speech, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in order to deliver “lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza.”

Human rights groups have called for an immediate end to Israel’s blockade and airstrikes on Gaza, which they said is an unlawful form of “collective punishment.”

The American public, though divided on the proper response to the Israel-Hamas conflict, supports engaging in diplomacy and sending humanitarian aid more so than sending weapons, according to new polling.

Humanitarian aid, diplomacy more favored than weapons

Seventy-six percent of Americans favor sending humanitarian aid to Israel, and 57% support providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll released on Oct. 19.

The poll, which surveyed a representative sample of 1,878 U.S. adults between Oct. 16 and 19, also found 72% of Americans supported employing diplomacy in the region. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Meanwhile, 48% of Americans said they favored arming the Israeli military.

Opinions on sending military aid to Israel largely break down along partisan lines, with 53% of Democrats opposing it and 57% of Republicans supporting it.

Seventy percent of Americans, according to another YouGov/Economist poll, support sending humanitarian aid to Israel, and 39% support sending humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, surveyed 1,500 U.S. citizens over 18 years old between Oct. 14 and 17.

Forty-one percent of Americans said sending military aid to Israel was a good idea, while 29% said it was a bad idea, and 30% were unsure.

According to the poll, far more Americans sympathize primarily with Israelis than Palestinians, 48% versus 10%.

Every age group expressed single-digit support for Palestinians with the exception of those aged 18-29, 18% of whom sympathized primarily with Palestinians.

These levels of sympathy largely align with the results of polls taken before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, in which its armed combatants killed 1,300 Israelis and took dozens of others hostage, according to Israeli officials.

Previous polling

When asked which group they sympathized more with, 54% of Americans said Israelis, according to a March Gallup poll, which surveyed 1,008 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. While still a majority, it was the lowest level of support for Israelis since 2005. Meanwhile, sympathy toward Palestinians among American adults was at an all-time high of 31%.

This trend was largely due to a sea change among Democrats. After a decade of growing affinity for the Palestinians, Democrats, for the first time, had more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis, 49% versus 36%.

Republicans, on the other hand, remained steadfast in their partiality toward Israelis. Seventy-eight percent of them sympathized with Israelis versus 11% for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, about half of independents, 49%, side with Israelis, while a record 32% sided with Palestinians.

When it comes to the governing bodies of both groups, Americans had much higher favorability toward Israel, 68%, than the Palestinian Authority, 26%. Favorability toward Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, was not polled.

In addition to a partisan divide, there was a substantial rift among older and younger generations of Americans when it comes to views of Israelis and Palestinians, according to a May 2022 Pew Research Center poll, which surveyed 10,441 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

More than three-quarters of adults over 65, 78%, had a favorable view of Israelis, while 47% felt the same way about Palestinians.

Meanwhile, 61% of adults under 30 had favorable views of Palestinians, while slightly less, 56%, had positive views of Israelis.

Christian adults were more favorable toward the Israelis than the Palestinians with 74% of protestants favoring Israel and 46% favoring Palestinians. There was less of a gap among Catholics, 67% of whom favor Israelis and 50% of whom favor Palestinians.

On the other hand, nonreligious American adults favored Israelis and Palestinians about equally, with 58% favoring Israelis and 59% favoring Palestinians.

Americans adults of all stripes had significantly lower levels of affinity for the Israeli and Palestinian governments, according to the poll.

Twenty-nine percent viewed the Israeli leadership favorably, while 10% viewed the Palestinian leadership favorably. Younger generations, Democrats and the nonreligious were more likely to have negative views of both governments.

However, the survey did not clarify whether “Palestinian government” meant the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, or Hamas, which administers Gaza.

This story was originally published October 20, 2023 at 11:15 AM with the headline "Should US arm Israel? Send humanitarian aid to Gaza? What Americans said in new polls."