A Partisan Divide Remains on Israel/Palestine Despite War

UMD Critical Issues Poll Reveals American Attitudes on U.S. Role, Biden’s Stance

As fighting intensified in the Israel-Hamas war, public opinion in the United States on the conflict remained split along partisan lines, according to a new University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll.

The poll of 1,021 respondents nationwide conducted with Ipsos found that 72% of Republicans want the U.S. to lean toward supporting Israel, while 57% of Democrats want the U.S. to lean toward neither side. It was fielded Oct. 20-22, two weeks after Hamas militants attacked Israeli civilians along the Gaza border, killing over 1,400 people and kidnapping hundreds of others, and in the midst of Israel’s military retaliation.

Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development Shibley Telhami, a professor of government and politics and the poll’s director, said that attitudes are likely to continue shifting as conditions change on the ground.

“In this poll, taken two weeks into the Israel-Gaza war, we avoided asking specifically about the war, as we opted to track how U.S. public attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue broadly have been affected by the fighting, benefiting from the fact that we regularly track this issue and thus have the ability to compare the results over time,” said Telhami.

Read more of Sala Levin's article in Maryland Today. The photo is from iStock.

Published on Fri, Nov 3, 2023 - 9:34AM