American voters want an end to the war in Gaza and for President Donald Trump to withhold US aid, if necessary, to pressure Israel to end it.
During last year’s presidential election campaign, Mr Trump promised big changes in US Middle East policy. He said that the war in Gaza would never have happened had he been president, and promised to end it. Months later, he boasted that it was his pressure that forced Israel to accept a ceasefire; and then, once in office, proposed the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza to make way for a Riviera-like resort.
Just before the election, a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute Foundation found overall support for ending the war and using US aid to Israel as leverage to press it to end the occupation of Palestinian lands and end the war in Gaza. This was true for strong majorities of Democrats, with some Republicans also agreeing.
More than three months into Mr Trump’s second term, Israel has ended the ceasefire, renewed its bombing campaign, instituted anew the forced “relocation” of civilians, and reimposed the blockade of food and medicine to the people living in Gaza.
The foundation repeated these same questions in a new poll last week. The overall results were about the same, but with one significant difference. Not just Democrats, but Mr Trump’s own Republican voter base also wants him to take a tougher stance to pressure Israel to change its behaviour.
This was one of the key findings in the poll released on April 30. The foundation commissioned John Zogby Strategies to poll 1,000 American voters to assess their attitudes towards the Trump administration’s policies regarding Israel’s war in Gaza.
It is quite clear that, between last November and last month, the overall responses did not change significantly. What has changed is that Israel is losing favour with Republicans, who now want Mr Trump to take a stronger stance to rein in its behaviour. This, however, does not translate into a lack of GOP voters’ support for the President’s domestic policies on allegations of anti-Semitism, crackdown on universities, and deportation of students involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests.
The poll finds that voters’ sympathy for Israel remains somewhat higher than for Palestinians. But by a significant 46 per cent to 30 per cent margin, American voters feel that US Middle East policy is too one-sided in favour of Israel, with 39 per cent of Republicans agreeing and 37 per cent disagreeing. This represents a substantial shift from last year, when only 33 per cent of Republicans agreed that policy was too pro-Israel against 43 per cent who said it was not.
By a two-to-one margin, American voters also agree that Mr Trump should “apply greater pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands and allow Palestinians to create an independent state of their own”. While this agree-disagree ratio largely tracks last year’s results, the major difference in this year’s findings is the substantial increase in Republicans who agree that the President should apply such pressure on Israel. Last year, the agree-disagree split for Republicans was 37 per cent to 40 per cent. Now 49 per cent agree that greater pressure should be applied, as opposed to only 29 per cent who disagree.
When asked whether the US should always provide unrestricted aid to Israel or should restrict such aid if Israel “continues to operate in a way which puts civilian lives at risk in Gaza and Lebanon”, this year’s overall results were essentially the same as last year’s. Twenty-three per cent are in favour of unrestricted aid, while 53 per cent are opposed.
A plurality of American voters also agree with the decisions of the International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s war in Gaza is tantamount to genocide and the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.
The bottom line in these initial results is that, while Americans remain sympathetic to Israel, they continue to be opposed to Israeli policies and want the President, whether a Democrat or a Republican, to use US aid as leverage to change Israel’s actions. And importantly, now a plurality of GOP voters, including those who self-identify as “born again Christians”, also want the President for whom they voted to crack down on Israel’s policies of bombing civilians and occupying Palestinian lands.
The responses, however, are different when it comes to measuring voters’ assessment of Mr Trump’s handling of the domestic fallout of the war in Gaza. Pluralities disagree with the administration’s decisions to deport student visa holders for their involvement in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests (saying that they “are anti-Semitic and pose a threat to the foreign policy of the United States”) or to cut funding from several universities, charging that they have not agreed to demands that they do more to fight allegations of anti-Semitism. But there is a deep partisan split on these issues, with Democrats and independent voters overwhelmingly opposed to the administration’s actions, and Republicans (including voters who are “born again”) strongly supportive of Mr Trump’s policies.
It is clear from all these results that, while substantial majorities of Democratic voters and independents have long parted ways with Israel over the war in Gaza and the occupation, Republicans and their evangelical Christian base are now also losing patience with Israeli policies. What is yet unknown is whether their change in attitude is due to greater frustration with Israeli behaviour or whether it is that, with a Republican now in the White House, Israel is seen as making the job of the President more difficult.
In either case, the poll makes clear that, if Mr Trump has the will to act to rein in Israel, he will have substantial support from both parties to do so.
