Poll: What Americans really think about the Israel-Hamas war 

As we pass two weeks since more than 1,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killed more than 1,400 Israelis, including children and Holocaust survivors, and took approximately 200 hostages, polling is beginning to provide insight into how Americans perceive the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, a violent extremist group which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.  

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been one of the more polarizing issues in American politics in recent decades, initial polling conducted following the Hamas pogrom reveals that Americans strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself, and importantly, believe that protecting Israel is a key interest for the United States. 

Americans’ reaction to the war was perhaps best embodied by President Biden in his speech from the Oval Office Thursday. Biden not only made the case for supporting Israel — and Ukraine — in a way that Americans would understand, but he also forcefully articulated America’s commitment to Israel which, following Hamas’s barbaric attack, is shared by the majority of the American public.  

Put another way, Biden’s speech encapsulated the unprecedented levels of support for Israel’s right to self-defense against a terrorist group that, in its 1988 charter, expressed a commitment to “vanquishing” the “enemy,” i.e., the world’s sole Jewish State, and support for eliminating the ideology that underpins groups like Hamas and ISIS. 

And, while support for Israel has been a more partisan issue in recent years, recent polling shows increased support for the Jewish State on both sides of the aisle, with both Democrats and Republicans heeding President Biden’s commendable words of support for Israel’s right to self-defense. 

To be sure, as the war evolves, it will be increasingly important to monitor public opinion, as attitudes and perceptions may change with events on the ground, although right now, positively, the American people firmly stand behind Israel. 

Indeed, 7 in 10 Americans — including 81 percent of Republicans and 74 percent of Democrats — support providing aid to Israel, while a plurality (41 percent) say it would be a “good idea” to send Israel weapons if needed, per Economist/YouGov polling. 

Moreover, Americans clearly recognize that Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, rescue the hostages and destroy the threat posed by Hamas. Asked for opinions on Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack, a plurality (35 percent) of registered voters said Israel’s retaliation has been “about right” while one-quarter said Israel’s response has been “not harsh enough.” 

In that same vein, Americans overwhelmingly (71 percent) believe that in terms of U.S. policy towards the Middle East, it is either “very important” (42 percent) or “somewhat important” (29 percent) to protect Israel. This belief is impressively bipartisan: 80 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of Democrats feel protecting Israel is an important aspect of American policy. 

What’s more, Americans feel that supporting Israel is more important than other geopolitical priorities. Roughly three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans say it is important that the U.S. fund military aid to Israel, the highest of any issue, beating border funding and foreign humanitarian aid (72 percent each), military aid for Ukraine (61 percent) and economic/military aid for Taiwan (52 percent), per CNBC polling. 

Frankly, in my five decades of experience in politics, including polling extensively on issues related to Israel and the America-Israel relationship, the current support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists who seek its destruction is like nothing I’ve seen before and speaks to the impact of the savagery the entire world witnessed on Oct.7.  

To that point, aside from the special relationship the U.S. has historically had with Israel, based on shared values and commitment to democracy, in the wake of Hamas’s attack both Biden and Israeli officials have made the case that Hamas and groups like ISIS are one and the same, a threat Americans both understand and are ready to confront.  

Additionally, while polling shows that there is more support for sending aid to Israel than to Ukraine, Biden was right to link them together in the $105 billion aid request he will put in front of Congress. Polling conducted by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, found that nearly 7 in 10 (68 percent) of Americans — including 70 percent of Republicans and 69 percent of Democrats — support providing aid to both Ukraine and Israel.  

Americans may better comprehend the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorists than the threat posed by a revisionist, autocratic Russia, but given the high levels of support for Israel, Republicans would be hard-pressed to vote against aid to Israel just because it included aid to Ukraine, as my organization’s polling makes clear. 

Of course, the ongoing division within the House Republican Caucus, evidenced by its inability to select a Speaker of the House following the misbegotten ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is a loud, yet tragic, message to the world that the U.S. is devoid of both bipartisanship and competent governance.  

As such, it is more apparent now than at any point in recent memory, that the public will have to lead the politicians in reinforcing America’s support for our allies during times of war. Neither Israel nor Ukraine wanted the wars they are engaging in, but the U.S. must take the lead in combatting the revisionist, autocratic “axis of evil” which spans from Russia to North Korea, China, Iran and its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen, which, for their own reasons, are united in their desire to extinguish the democracies in their neighborhood.  

Ultimately, as Israel’s war against Hamas continues against the backdrop of a looming Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, and even a possible expansion of the war into Southern Lebanon/Northern Israel, it will be important to watch whether America’s broad-based and emphatic support for Israel continues. 

For right now, the data is clear: The American people overwhelmingly support Israel’s right to defend itself and reject isolationist policies that would abandon our allies.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”