I am a Democrat. I am not Jewish. I grew up on stories of Israel's fight for independence. I was 14 when Israeli athletes were massacred in Munich. I was 15 when the Yom Kippur war broke out. I was outraged and horrified by Hamas' cruel attack on Israeli civilians. I believe Israel has the right to defend itself. I have no patience for those who castigated Biden for doing his best to rein in an important ally.
But more than 50,000 people in Gaza are dead? And for what? So that Netanyahu could stay out of jail long enough for Trump to be elected to give him carte Blanche?
I will always support the Israeli people. I will oppose anti-Semitism. But what's going on in Gaza and the West Bank is inhumanity meted out to secure the personal ambitions of a corrupt politician. Anyone who isn't blind or misinformed can see that.
So, yeah, if the Israeli government has lost someone like me, it has lost the war of public opinion among those of us who used to be its staunchest supporters.
Netanyahu needs to go, the war needs to end, a two-state solution needs to be implemented. Fifty-fifty years of occupation is enough.
50,000 people in Gaza, an inflated number that includes Hamas terrorists, are dead because Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, murdered 1,200+ people in a rape and murder and mutilation assault, took over 250 hostages, refuses to disarm or surrender, and uses human shields.
None of that has anything to do with Netanyahu staying out of jail. He's still years away from a chance of that, even if the war ended tomorrow.
People died in Gaza because Hamas won't stop the war. Just as they died in Germany until the Nazis surrendered. That's war. Israel has done its best, despite Hamas using human shields, to minimize the civilian death toll.
That's it. You need to reconsider why you're sharing Hamas statistics, not noting that they are likely inflated, not noting that they include Hamas terrorists, and stop blaming Netanyahu for doing what literally any Israeli leader would have done, with the sole exception that some Israeli leaders might have ended the war sooner...and faced another October 7 in the future, which Hamas has promised to do again, and again, as many times as they can. Which would only have led to more deaths than uprooting this terrorist group, as is necessary.
That’s not the *only* reason so many are dead. Netanyahu chose escalation to avoid attention to his dereliction of his first duty, to defend his country. Some things needed to be done, but most of what he’s doing is not making Israel safer, it’s just collective punishment. And you can’t deter Hamas by making Gaza civilians suffer, because Hamas doesn’t care about Gaza civilians.
Interesting, but opinion about Israel in the US is not only about Israel's actions. It's also been consistently influenced by pro-Hama propaganda flooding the progressive left.
Hamas actively courted Black Lives Matter, and the idea that Jews are White, not indigenous to Israel, and therefore should not have a state or self-determination, began to take hold. Universities also began hiring exclusively anti-zionist Humanities faculty around the same time -- the results on campus speak for themselves.
Worse, the American media also parrots Hamas propaganda (see the well-meaning comment below which cites the Hamas-provided figure of 50K dead civilians in Gaza with no mention of the American hostages).
Of course, Netanyahu doesn't help. But most Americans aren't tuned into the Iran deal. They are thinking about how they can't afford health insurance or have to work three jobs to pay rent. They also are primed for conspiracy theories as our government falls apart, plus antisemitism has always been present in the culture.
I read your descriptions of this polling and wonder how I would answer such questions. When asked if I have more sympathy for the Israelis or the Palestinians, how could I answer such a simplistic question? I disapprove of the Israeli government, and I understand that recent polls in Israel seem to show some increased support for Bibi and his right-wing coalition. I have disdain, not sympathy, for that. Palestinian babies - well my sympathy for them has no bounds. Palestinian adults? This is way too complicated for me, given that their leaders and their schools have brainwashed them to think that Jews and Israel have no right to exist. Do I have sympathy for the policies of increasing Israeli settlements I. The West Bank? Absolutely not, and I have sympathy for the Palestinian people there with homes that get bulldozed to enable the settlements.
The overly simplistic questions in these polls are predicated on the overly simplistic news we get in the U.S., and on the lack of real education and understanding we receive here. As an elderly Jew who has never been to Israel, I’m ashamed to say that most of my own knowledge of that country and its situation has been incredibly superficial. It is only since October 7 that I have begun trying to educate myself.
You are far too busy defending Obama to actually pay attention to what liberals are saying and doing to Jews. They'll come for you eventually; they always do, and you will be shocked, just shocked when it happens.
Consider also the effects of immigration over the past 40 or 50 years. There are far more students with Arab and Palestinian heritage than there were when I graduated from Columbia University in 1985. Additionally, there are far more students from Africa, Asia and South Asia who come from families with a different historical memory of British and European colonialism than people like me from families with northern and southern European roots. In 1985, I might have studied with professors like Edward Said to learn the anti-colonial, Palestinian perspective on the creation of Israel, but I had no Palestinian friends on campus. I had no Middle Eastern and South Asian friends (a few Arab and Persian friends and acquaintances who were not students) and lots of Jewish friends among my classmates. Today, I am struck by the fact that the majority of the peaceful, passionate protesters at Barnard and Columbia are women who hardly fit the ugly stereotype of angry militant terrorists. If I were a student today, I could not help but listen and learn to understand their point of view in a more direct and personal way than I ever did forty years ago when I more or less accepted the necessary and inevitable creation of the state of Israel uncritically.
The changing US population is as significant to a generational shift in public opinion as are the policies of Bibi Netanyahu, however abhorrent. I do agree that Netanyahu's decision to snub President Obama and appeal directly to congressional Republicans was a seminal moment. But, remember, today's college kids were in elementary school when that happened, and the vast majority of Americans are not aware of and do not pay attention to diplomatic slights like that.
Another topic for consideration: changes in the consumption of news since the advent of smartphones and social media.
Someone violently entered buildings and vandalized them. Someone built encampments and barriers that explicitly threatened and excluded “Zionists”. Who did those things?
There were arrests for trespassing and resisting arrest, not for violent confrontations with police or with other students. The encampment was in one of two small fenced-in lawns in the middle of a much larger of campus. A "Zionist Free Zone" was declared on that small lawn. The other lawn was not occupied. No doubt many Jewish students felt threatened by the protests. Other Jewish students joined the protest and pitched their own tents on that small lawn. Most did not feel threatened at all. The singing, chanting, and ongoing noise may have been a nuisance and may have disrupted otherwise quiet classroom and study time, but no one was ever prevented from going to class or to the library or anywhere on campus. Buildings (plural) were not occupied and any vandalism was minimal. Hamilton Hall was occupied only after many students were arrested when the police were called in to clear the encampment so that chairs could be set up for graduation day, which was a couple of weeks away. Bringing police onto campus broke the peace.
Breaking into buildings is violence. Staff were injured when protesters broke into buildings. Excluding people from areas they have every right to be in involves violence, or the threat of violence. There was actually an enormous amount of damage, not "minimal" at all. If you commit violent acts, that necessarily require a police response, then *you* are the ones responsible for that response.
Once again, all of the vandalism to the illegally occupied building, Hamilton Hall, happened after university president summoned the police to arrest students who had been protesting peacefully.
I basicly agree with the author. I do believe that a growing number of "older" voters are moving away from a post WW ll view of the creation of Israel to one of an expansive country that sees democracy only through the prism of a Jewish state without legal participation of the indigenous Palestinian population. In my humble opinion, peace will only be achieved through a fair and just 2 State solution.
Gosh! Maybe Israel's Gazan genocide might have something to do with its declining popularity? Ya think? Look. Maybe government types and media stenographers can resolutely look past the atrocities, but we the people do not.
There is no genocide and never was. Look up how many Jews died of starvation even after being liberated from the camps, and how many Palestinians have "starved" since the cease fire. You won't, because you can resolutely look past atrocities, but you should. In the meantime, blame it on unicorns. They are just as real as your proposed "reason".
I wonder how much of the partisan change is Democrats changing their mind re: Israel vs. pro-Israel former Democrats now identifying as Republicans or Independent.
Also interesting to see that although support for Israeli has continued to dwindle since 10/7, the charts shows essentially a continuation of a preexisting trend.
I'm surprised that you're surprised. Americans most always root for the underdog. And I agree with everything in the comment below; no need to write it out again.
Edit: I am very unsurprised that Richard Jasper, on this thread, decided to immediately block me after I pointed out his perpetuation of Hamas propaganda.
But it is ironic given his comment on a substack called "Dialogue and Dissonance".
Anyways: Man who spends more of his time criticizing Israel than explaining its valid actions sees drop in support for Israel and decides to...blame Israel.
Well, it seems somewhat undeniable that support for Israel was high after Oct 7, and declined after that, largely because of what they did in response to Oct 7.
That is a simplistic and wrongheaded analysis. For a book length treatment explaining the real issue, read People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn. To sum up, it isn’t what specifically Israel did in response, it was the lies told about it and the fact that Israel didn’t just roll over and die that upsets so many.
The book was literally published in 2021, before the recent dramatic drop in approval for Israel. So the drop *must* depend on factors *other* than those.
As I said in the other comment, this is nonsense. The book explains an existing trend, and the reasons for it, and the lesson it takes about why that trend happened explains why the trend accelerated during this war.
I don’t understand how you think a book can’t explain a trend that shows up in the future. That’s an unusual argument. If support for racial intermarriage is going up and a book explains the factors for why in 1975, and the support goes up even faster after the book comes out due to an acceleration of the factors the book identified, is the book irrelevant? Obviously not.
I still think Israel’s many wrongheaded actions, some understandable, are the primary reason that it has lost so much support. All of the other things you say were true for the last 50 years, during which Israel enjoyed remarkable support in the USA, but it has badly mishandled (or perhaps intentionally mishandled, in pandering to its far right as well as attempting to distract from Bibi’s colossal failure) the Gaza conflict.
The reality is, many of those things are the same from 1967 to today. The roots of the problem lie in the lies about Israel since then and changes in the U.S.’s public opinion calculus (ie the factors that Americans consider important, as affected by elite opinion that has adopted antisemitic tropes), not in Israel’s actions. The problem is not Israel’s actions, it is the way they are portrayed and the change in US thoughts (like heightened black and white thinking, body count morality determinations, oppressed and oppressor dynamic popularities) that affect how the U.S. views Israel. Israel hasn’t mishandled it. American minds have simply been dominated by ideologies that make it impossible for Israel to do anything besides roll over and die.
That’s what the book talks about. It identifies a trend that began before this recent war, and explains why the trend accelerated during the war. The fact it was published in 2021 doesn’t make it irrelevant. I don’t get why you’d ignore it on that basis. I suggest you read it.
If the things were the same before 2021 as after 2023, why did support for Israel remain high for decades, and high after the Oct 7 attacks, and only drop after Israel's attacks on Gaza? I certainly don't have any "heightened black or white thinking" or "body count morality determinations" or "oppressed and oppressor" analysis, but I think cutting off food and power to Gaza is shameful. Where does that fit in your analysis?
Support among Democrats, which is what affected the overall drop and explains almost the whole drop, began to fall long before 2021. Your factual premise is wrong. It’s notable too that you call it “after Israel’s attacks on Gaza”. That’s the kind of media influence resulting from the “oppression” ideology that results in even the basic way we describe Israel’s self defensive fight against Hamas.
I think Israel has never been required to feed and supply its enemies, nor has any country in history, especially when those enemies have enough food and power to sustain themselves for quite some time. I think that’s been true of every other war in history but the double standard has become obvious. Even international law doesn’t require it.
That act isn’t what explains the poll showing a serious drop before that act was done. So please, let’s not pretend that explains the drop.
I agree with the comments below. A large majority of Americans don't even know who Netanyahu is, much less how he's interacting with Democrats or Republicans. The trends seem entirely to do with the war and not with the political interactions you as an extreme DC insider focus on.
That question literally gives the respondents the answer. So it doesn’t test if they know the answer! I think if you asked, “Do you have confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to do the right thing?” you would get similar results!! It’s a question about confidence in Israeli leadership, which is answered based on Israeli actions. There’s NO reason to believe this has anything to do with Bibi’s relationship with US GOP, as opposed to the much more obvious factor, the war.
I am a Democrat. I am not Jewish. I grew up on stories of Israel's fight for independence. I was 14 when Israeli athletes were massacred in Munich. I was 15 when the Yom Kippur war broke out. I was outraged and horrified by Hamas' cruel attack on Israeli civilians. I believe Israel has the right to defend itself. I have no patience for those who castigated Biden for doing his best to rein in an important ally.
But more than 50,000 people in Gaza are dead? And for what? So that Netanyahu could stay out of jail long enough for Trump to be elected to give him carte Blanche?
I will always support the Israeli people. I will oppose anti-Semitism. But what's going on in Gaza and the West Bank is inhumanity meted out to secure the personal ambitions of a corrupt politician. Anyone who isn't blind or misinformed can see that.
So, yeah, if the Israeli government has lost someone like me, it has lost the war of public opinion among those of us who used to be its staunchest supporters.
Netanyahu needs to go, the war needs to end, a two-state solution needs to be implemented. Fifty-fifty years of occupation is enough.
50,000 people in Gaza, an inflated number that includes Hamas terrorists, are dead because Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, murdered 1,200+ people in a rape and murder and mutilation assault, took over 250 hostages, refuses to disarm or surrender, and uses human shields.
None of that has anything to do with Netanyahu staying out of jail. He's still years away from a chance of that, even if the war ended tomorrow.
People died in Gaza because Hamas won't stop the war. Just as they died in Germany until the Nazis surrendered. That's war. Israel has done its best, despite Hamas using human shields, to minimize the civilian death toll.
That's it. You need to reconsider why you're sharing Hamas statistics, not noting that they are likely inflated, not noting that they include Hamas terrorists, and stop blaming Netanyahu for doing what literally any Israeli leader would have done, with the sole exception that some Israeli leaders might have ended the war sooner...and faced another October 7 in the future, which Hamas has promised to do again, and again, as many times as they can. Which would only have led to more deaths than uprooting this terrorist group, as is necessary.
That’s not the *only* reason so many are dead. Netanyahu chose escalation to avoid attention to his dereliction of his first duty, to defend his country. Some things needed to be done, but most of what he’s doing is not making Israel safer, it’s just collective punishment. And you can’t deter Hamas by making Gaza civilians suffer, because Hamas doesn’t care about Gaza civilians.
Interesting, but opinion about Israel in the US is not only about Israel's actions. It's also been consistently influenced by pro-Hama propaganda flooding the progressive left.
Hamas actively courted Black Lives Matter, and the idea that Jews are White, not indigenous to Israel, and therefore should not have a state or self-determination, began to take hold. Universities also began hiring exclusively anti-zionist Humanities faculty around the same time -- the results on campus speak for themselves.
Worse, the American media also parrots Hamas propaganda (see the well-meaning comment below which cites the Hamas-provided figure of 50K dead civilians in Gaza with no mention of the American hostages).
Of course, Netanyahu doesn't help. But most Americans aren't tuned into the Iran deal. They are thinking about how they can't afford health insurance or have to work three jobs to pay rent. They also are primed for conspiracy theories as our government falls apart, plus antisemitism has always been present in the culture.
All of which gets you a chart like that.
I read your descriptions of this polling and wonder how I would answer such questions. When asked if I have more sympathy for the Israelis or the Palestinians, how could I answer such a simplistic question? I disapprove of the Israeli government, and I understand that recent polls in Israel seem to show some increased support for Bibi and his right-wing coalition. I have disdain, not sympathy, for that. Palestinian babies - well my sympathy for them has no bounds. Palestinian adults? This is way too complicated for me, given that their leaders and their schools have brainwashed them to think that Jews and Israel have no right to exist. Do I have sympathy for the policies of increasing Israeli settlements I. The West Bank? Absolutely not, and I have sympathy for the Palestinian people there with homes that get bulldozed to enable the settlements.
The overly simplistic questions in these polls are predicated on the overly simplistic news we get in the U.S., and on the lack of real education and understanding we receive here. As an elderly Jew who has never been to Israel, I’m ashamed to say that most of my own knowledge of that country and its situation has been incredibly superficial. It is only since October 7 that I have begun trying to educate myself.
You are far too busy defending Obama to actually pay attention to what liberals are saying and doing to Jews. They'll come for you eventually; they always do, and you will be shocked, just shocked when it happens.
Consider also the effects of immigration over the past 40 or 50 years. There are far more students with Arab and Palestinian heritage than there were when I graduated from Columbia University in 1985. Additionally, there are far more students from Africa, Asia and South Asia who come from families with a different historical memory of British and European colonialism than people like me from families with northern and southern European roots. In 1985, I might have studied with professors like Edward Said to learn the anti-colonial, Palestinian perspective on the creation of Israel, but I had no Palestinian friends on campus. I had no Middle Eastern and South Asian friends (a few Arab and Persian friends and acquaintances who were not students) and lots of Jewish friends among my classmates. Today, I am struck by the fact that the majority of the peaceful, passionate protesters at Barnard and Columbia are women who hardly fit the ugly stereotype of angry militant terrorists. If I were a student today, I could not help but listen and learn to understand their point of view in a more direct and personal way than I ever did forty years ago when I more or less accepted the necessary and inevitable creation of the state of Israel uncritically.
The changing US population is as significant to a generational shift in public opinion as are the policies of Bibi Netanyahu, however abhorrent. I do agree that Netanyahu's decision to snub President Obama and appeal directly to congressional Republicans was a seminal moment. But, remember, today's college kids were in elementary school when that happened, and the vast majority of Americans are not aware of and do not pay attention to diplomatic slights like that.
Another topic for consideration: changes in the consumption of news since the advent of smartphones and social media.
Columbia also has a whole lot of non-peaceful protesters!
That has never been documented.
Someone violently entered buildings and vandalized them. Someone built encampments and barriers that explicitly threatened and excluded “Zionists”. Who did those things?
There were arrests for trespassing and resisting arrest, not for violent confrontations with police or with other students. The encampment was in one of two small fenced-in lawns in the middle of a much larger of campus. A "Zionist Free Zone" was declared on that small lawn. The other lawn was not occupied. No doubt many Jewish students felt threatened by the protests. Other Jewish students joined the protest and pitched their own tents on that small lawn. Most did not feel threatened at all. The singing, chanting, and ongoing noise may have been a nuisance and may have disrupted otherwise quiet classroom and study time, but no one was ever prevented from going to class or to the library or anywhere on campus. Buildings (plural) were not occupied and any vandalism was minimal. Hamilton Hall was occupied only after many students were arrested when the police were called in to clear the encampment so that chairs could be set up for graduation day, which was a couple of weeks away. Bringing police onto campus broke the peace.
Breaking into buildings is violence. Staff were injured when protesters broke into buildings. Excluding people from areas they have every right to be in involves violence, or the threat of violence. There was actually an enormous amount of damage, not "minimal" at all. If you commit violent acts, that necessarily require a police response, then *you* are the ones responsible for that response.
Once again, all of the vandalism to the illegally occupied building, Hamilton Hall, happened after university president summoned the police to arrest students who had been protesting peacefully.
I basicly agree with the author. I do believe that a growing number of "older" voters are moving away from a post WW ll view of the creation of Israel to one of an expansive country that sees democracy only through the prism of a Jewish state without legal participation of the indigenous Palestinian population. In my humble opinion, peace will only be achieved through a fair and just 2 State solution.
Maybe setup a government that doesn’t think it’s rick james…
https://open.substack.com/pub/treemason/p/israel-the-geopolitical-rick-james?r=2wv5d&utm_medium=ios
Gosh! Maybe Israel's Gazan genocide might have something to do with its declining popularity? Ya think? Look. Maybe government types and media stenographers can resolutely look past the atrocities, but we the people do not.
There is no genocide and never was. Look up how many Jews died of starvation even after being liberated from the camps, and how many Palestinians have "starved" since the cease fire. You won't, because you can resolutely look past atrocities, but you should. In the meantime, blame it on unicorns. They are just as real as your proposed "reason".
I wonder how much of the partisan change is Democrats changing their mind re: Israel vs. pro-Israel former Democrats now identifying as Republicans or Independent.
Also interesting to see that although support for Israeli has continued to dwindle since 10/7, the charts shows essentially a continuation of a preexisting trend.
I'm surprised that you're surprised. Americans most always root for the underdog. And I agree with everything in the comment below; no need to write it out again.
Edit: I am very unsurprised that Richard Jasper, on this thread, decided to immediately block me after I pointed out his perpetuation of Hamas propaganda.
But it is ironic given his comment on a substack called "Dialogue and Dissonance".
Anyways: Man who spends more of his time criticizing Israel than explaining its valid actions sees drop in support for Israel and decides to...blame Israel.
Unreal.
Well, it seems somewhat undeniable that support for Israel was high after Oct 7, and declined after that, largely because of what they did in response to Oct 7.
That is a simplistic and wrongheaded analysis. For a book length treatment explaining the real issue, read People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn. To sum up, it isn’t what specifically Israel did in response, it was the lies told about it and the fact that Israel didn’t just roll over and die that upsets so many.
The book was literally published in 2021, before the recent dramatic drop in approval for Israel. So the drop *must* depend on factors *other* than those.
As I said in the other comment, this is nonsense. The book explains an existing trend, and the reasons for it, and the lesson it takes about why that trend happened explains why the trend accelerated during this war.
I don’t understand how you think a book can’t explain a trend that shows up in the future. That’s an unusual argument. If support for racial intermarriage is going up and a book explains the factors for why in 1975, and the support goes up even faster after the book comes out due to an acceleration of the factors the book identified, is the book irrelevant? Obviously not.
I still think Israel’s many wrongheaded actions, some understandable, are the primary reason that it has lost so much support. All of the other things you say were true for the last 50 years, during which Israel enjoyed remarkable support in the USA, but it has badly mishandled (or perhaps intentionally mishandled, in pandering to its far right as well as attempting to distract from Bibi’s colossal failure) the Gaza conflict.
The reality is, many of those things are the same from 1967 to today. The roots of the problem lie in the lies about Israel since then and changes in the U.S.’s public opinion calculus (ie the factors that Americans consider important, as affected by elite opinion that has adopted antisemitic tropes), not in Israel’s actions. The problem is not Israel’s actions, it is the way they are portrayed and the change in US thoughts (like heightened black and white thinking, body count morality determinations, oppressed and oppressor dynamic popularities) that affect how the U.S. views Israel. Israel hasn’t mishandled it. American minds have simply been dominated by ideologies that make it impossible for Israel to do anything besides roll over and die.
That’s what the book talks about. It identifies a trend that began before this recent war, and explains why the trend accelerated during the war. The fact it was published in 2021 doesn’t make it irrelevant. I don’t get why you’d ignore it on that basis. I suggest you read it.
If the things were the same before 2021 as after 2023, why did support for Israel remain high for decades, and high after the Oct 7 attacks, and only drop after Israel's attacks on Gaza? I certainly don't have any "heightened black or white thinking" or "body count morality determinations" or "oppressed and oppressor" analysis, but I think cutting off food and power to Gaza is shameful. Where does that fit in your analysis?
Support among Democrats, which is what affected the overall drop and explains almost the whole drop, began to fall long before 2021. Your factual premise is wrong. It’s notable too that you call it “after Israel’s attacks on Gaza”. That’s the kind of media influence resulting from the “oppression” ideology that results in even the basic way we describe Israel’s self defensive fight against Hamas.
I think Israel has never been required to feed and supply its enemies, nor has any country in history, especially when those enemies have enough food and power to sustain themselves for quite some time. I think that’s been true of every other war in history but the double standard has become obvious. Even international law doesn’t require it.
That act isn’t what explains the poll showing a serious drop before that act was done. So please, let’s not pretend that explains the drop.
I agree with the comments below. A large majority of Americans don't even know who Netanyahu is, much less how he's interacting with Democrats or Republicans. The trends seem entirely to do with the war and not with the political interactions you as an extreme DC insider focus on.
David - Don't think that is accurate. Check out these numbers. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/25/a-growing-share-of-americans-have-little-or-no-confidence-in-netanyahu/
That question literally gives the respondents the answer. So it doesn’t test if they know the answer! I think if you asked, “Do you have confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to do the right thing?” you would get similar results!! It’s a question about confidence in Israeli leadership, which is answered based on Israeli actions. There’s NO reason to believe this has anything to do with Bibi’s relationship with US GOP, as opposed to the much more obvious factor, the war.