Polling shows drop in US sympathy toward Israel mostly among Democrats, but also among Republicans. Settlers don’t care

Three years after October 7, and one year exactly since the tenuous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, polling has shown a steady drop in American sympathy toward Israel. The once-bipartisan support has eroded, most sharply among Democrats, but also among Republicans.

If Israel had 54 percent support among Americans after October 7, according to Quinnipiac polling, it is now 35 percent, with 38 percent sympathizing with Palestinians.

Israel has been a central issue in the upcoming U.S. midterms, and has seemingly empowered candidates who called, at the very least, for a reexamination of the “historic friendship.” Among politicians and Jewish leaders, the question of why Americans and younger Jews are turning away from Israel is still fiercely debated. Some blame rising antisemitism. Others point to a progressive anti-Zionist turn, Qatari influence, or limit their criticism of Israel to a few rogue ministers who make it look bad. [What about Israeli genocide and brutality toward Palestinians?] Meanwhile, questions of identity and belonging divide the Jewish community.

Minster, with his blunt confidence, plainly named the main reason Americans are pulling away from Israel and admitted what many U.S. leaders cannot: Americans see Israel’s top priority, especially since the Gaza war, as advancing annexation and occupation and widening its hold on the Strip and Lebanon.

While Benjamin Netanyahu has downplayed settler violence as “young juvenile delinquents, about 150 in number,” other leaders are being explicit about Israel’s aim in English: Speaking through a translator at an election event for English speakers in Tel Aviv on Monday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for Israel to occupy all of Gaza and push “voluntary migration” from the Strip and the West Bank.

Even candidates who supposedly represent “change,” like Gadi Eisenkot, have made the point of visiting violent outposts to vow opposition to a Palestinian state and to attack the U.K. for announcing its settlement trade ban.

Americans are paying attention to the West Bank, Gaza and Israeli society not because of a sudden fixation that developed over the past three years, but because of decades of American politicians making Israel central to U.S. politics, while many Jewish leaders argued that total support for Israel is central to American Jewish identity.

Meanwhile, U.S. citizens see administration after administration fail to hold Israel accountable as the brazenness of the violence in the West Bank, backed and often conducted in collaboration with the IDF, increases. They see the dispossession and killing with impunity, including of American citizens. Meanwhile, the majority of Israelis imbibe anxiety-laden reports by Israel’s mainstream media outlets about how few places abroad are still safe for them. The tension this creates mainly emboldens the settlers and their political representatives.

Some dismiss people like Minster who are willing to sacrifice Israel for their messianic aims as fringe, but Israeli policies and rhetoric over the past three years fully align with his aspirations. Netanyahu warned that Israel will face increasing isolation as it pursues its ongoing wars and will have to adapt to “autarkic features” and become a “super-Sparta.” Rather than change course, Netanyahu doubled down on Israel’s becoming a pariah state, something his far-right allies have never shied away from.

In the film “NAZA,” Israeli officers who describe alleged war crimes appeared with their faces blurred. Meanwhile, many settlers often confess to – and commit – violence with their faces exposed on camera. In a similarly candid moment, an Israeli settler admitted he knows what’s driving Americans away from Israel, and that Israel is willing to pay the price.