It wasn’t too long ago that declaring support for Israel was a rite of passage for the typical American politician, especially one in the middle of an election campaign. While a few might not raise the issue, virtually none would offer a straightforward slap at Israel.
But that was then and now things are decidedly different with an alarming turnaround. Despite the fact that in November all members of the House of Representatives will be up for reelection, it appears that forty-seven congressional Democrats signed a letter calling on President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio to recognize a Palestinian state.
As reported by The Jerusalem Post, the letter claimed that steps needed to be taken to address the so-called “injustice” underlying the Israel-Hamas War inasmuch as the Israeli government is undermining the potential of a Palestinian state with a campaign of annexation in Judea and Samaria and calls by Israeli politicians to do the same in Gaza.
“Just as the lives of Palestinians must be immediately protected, so too must their rights as a people and nation urgently be acknowledged and upheld,” read the letter. It also encouraged other nations to recognize a Palestinian state.
This, of course, happened despite the fact that the war in Gaza was a response to the horrific October 7 massacres and hostage-taking, Hamas’s vow to repeat it, destroy Israel and is continuing to hold captive, those still alive. In fact, most everyone understands that if Hamas survives the war organizationally it will be the most potent force in the Palestinian world no matter what PA President Mahmoud Abbas says about who will call the shots.
And, although the situations are somewhat different in terms of upcoming elections, The New York Times reports a group of Democratic senators has introduced legislation calling on President Trump to recognize a Palestinian state, the first such measure to be proposed in the U.S. Senate, the Times said.
The non-binding resolution, led by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, talks of a humanitarian crisis sparked by the Gaza war, has little chance of adoption in the Republican-led Senate but proponents argue that it sends an important message of support to the U.S. allies who announced their recognition of a Palestinian state at the recent session of the UN General Assembly.
To be sure, both the letter and resolution stipulate a demilitarized state with Hamas playing no role, but as noted, that is a pipe-dream and essentially just a wave to political correctness. Indeed, Hamas has categorically rejected calls for it to relinquish power and disarm. It has also refused to declare that it has abandoned its avowed goal of bringing about the destruction of the Jewish State.
Nor has this all happened in a vacuum.
The Times reports that Americans’ support for Israel has dramatically declined since the start of the war nearly two years ago, citing a New York Times/Sienna University poll. According to the Times, the poll shows that disapproval of the war appears to have prompted “striking reassessment by American voters of their broader sympathies in the decades-old conflict in the region, with slightly more voters siding with Palestinians over Israelis for the first time since the Times began asking voters about their sympathies in 1998.”
The Times notes, “In the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2003, American voters broadly sympathized with Israelis over Palestinians, with 47 percent siding with Israel and 20 percent with Palestinians. In the new poll, 34 percent said they sided with Israel and 35 percent with Palestinians. Thirty-one percent said they were unsure or backed both equally.”
Stunningly, the Times also reports, that “about six out of 10 voters said that Israel should end its military campaign, even if the remaining hostages were not released or Hamas was not eliminated. And 40 percent of voters said Israel was intentionally killing civilians in Gaza, nearly double the number of voters who agreed with that statement in a 2023 poll.”
The internal Democratic numbers paint an even more disturbing picture: the survey is said to demonstrate that “rank and file Democrats across the country overwhelmingly side with the Palestinians – 54 percent said they sympathized more with Palestinians, while only 13 percent expressed greater empathy for Israel.”
On the other hand, the Republican numbers are not as striking, but they show a movement away from Israel as well. Republicans still sympathize with Israel more than Palestinians, 64 percent to 9 percent. But those numbers indicate a drop in support of 12 percentage points since 2023, when 76 percent sided with Israel.
So, when all is said and done about the poll’s numbers – and we could not address them all – their significance to the continued relationship between Israel and the United States is ominous. In fact, the survey already says that a majority of American voters oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel as a result of its conduct of the war.
Plainly our community has lots to do, especially come election time.
But we suggest there is a ray of hope. The New York Times has many times been charged with spinning its reporting in support of its own opinions.