Americans' Steadfast Support for Israel Fades

For decades, support for Israel has been one of the most durable features of U.S. foreign policy. That institutional relationship remains substantial, but American public opinion has been changing in ways that are increasingly difficult for policymakers in either country to ignore.

The shift was already visible in early 2025, shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office. During a February White House appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump proposed that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and suggested that Palestinians could be relocated elsewhere while the territory was redeveloped. The proposal drew rejection from Palestinian and Arab leaders and widespread international criticism. United Nations experts said forced displacement or annexation of territory by force would violate international law.

The episode underscored an important distinction in the U.S.-Israel relationship: strong support from an American administration does not necessarily mean equally strong support across the American public.

Public opinion was already moving

In Gallup's February 2025 World Affairs survey, 46% of Americans said their sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were more with Israelis, while 33% said they sympathized more with Palestinians. At the time, the 46% figure was the lowest level of sympathy for Israelis in Gallup's annual trend dating to 2001, while the Palestinian figure was the highest Gallup had recorded.

The movement was not confined to one polling organization. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March 2025 found that 53% of U.S. adults held an unfavorable opinion of Israel, compared with 42% when Pew asked the question in 2022.

The partisan divide was pronounced. Pew found unfavorable views of Israel among 69% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents and 37% of Republicans and Republican leaners. But the data also showed movement within the Republican coalition: much of the increase in negative views among Republicans since 2022 came from adults under 50.

That distinction matters because American opinion about Israel cannot accurately be described as a simple shift from support to opposition. Attitudes vary sharply by age and political affiliation, and views of Israel as a country, the Israeli government, Netanyahu personally, Palestinians and Hamas are separate measures that should not be treated as interchangeable.

October 7 and the Gaza war reshaped the debate

The political environment changed dramatically after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. Israel responded with a large-scale military campaign in Gaza, producing extensive destruction, displacement and Palestinian casualties.

The Biden administration continued substantial military and diplomatic support for Israel while also pressing Israeli officials at various points over civilian casualties and humanitarian access. A Brown University Costs of War study estimated that the United States approved at least $17.9 billion in security assistance for Israeli military operations during the first year after October 7, 2023.

That support became a major source of domestic political conflict. Demonstrations took place across the United States, including on university campuses, while critics of Biden's policy accused his administration of enabling Israel's conduct in Gaza. Supporters of continued U.S. assistance argued that Israel needed American backing to defend itself against Hamas and other regional threats.

Jake Sullivan, who served as Biden's national security adviser, later described the administration as confronting competing considerations: seeking to reduce civilian harm and improve humanitarian access while continuing to provide Israel with resources to confront its adversaries.

The political consequences of the Gaza war were also debated during the 2024 U.S. election. Some Arab American and Muslim voters, particularly in Michigan, publicly opposed the Biden administration's approach. The extent to which Gaza policy affected the election outcome, however, cannot be isolated from the many other factors influencing voters.

A relationship built over decades

The contemporary U.S.-Israel relationship developed gradually rather than emerging in its current form in 1948.

President Harry S. Truman recognized the State of Israel shortly after its declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. The decision followed intense disagreement inside his administration. Secretary of State George Marshall and other officials had raised strategic concerns about recognition, while White House adviser Clark Clifford argued in favor of it.

The relationship subsequently deepened as the regional and Cold War environment changed. Israel's victory over Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War was an important turning point. Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. The Sinai was later returned to Egypt under the peace process between the two countries, while the status of the other territories became central to the Israeli-Palestinian and wider Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Over subsequent decades, military cooperation became one of the central pillars of the bilateral relationship. The United States has also played a major diplomatic role in Arab-Israeli negotiations, including the Egyptian-Israeli and Israeli-Jordanian peace processes and negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Military assistance remains deeply institutionalized

Public-opinion changes have not automatically translated into equivalent changes in U.S. security policy.

Under a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016, covering fiscal years 2019 through 2028, the United States committed to $33 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel. The agreement also provides for $5 billion in missile-defense funding over the decade, bringing the total planned commitment to $38 billion.

The arrangement illustrates why changes in polling should not be confused with immediate policy reversals. U.S.-Israel cooperation is embedded in congressional appropriations, defense programs, diplomatic relationships and decades of strategic policy.

At the same time, public attitudes can influence the political environment in which future decisions about weapons transfers, military assistance and diplomatic support are debated.

The divide widened further

Polling after the original 2025 debate showed that the shift did not quickly reverse. In July 2025, Gallup found that 32% of Americans approved of Israel's military action in Gaza while 60% disapproved. Approval varied dramatically by party: 71% among Republicans, 25% among independents and 8% among Democrats.

By early 2026, Gallup recorded another notable change. Its February survey found 41% of Americans sympathizing more with Palestinians and 36% sympathizing more with Israelis. Gallup said the five-point difference was not statistically significant, but it marked the first time in the organization's annual trend since 2001 that Israelis no longer held a statistically significant advantage on that measure.

Pew's March 2026 survey likewise found increasingly negative views: 60% of U.S. adults expressed an unfavorable opinion of Israel, compared with 53% in 2025 and 42% in 2022. Pew found that younger adults were particularly negative, while significant partisan differences remained.

Those figures document changing attitudes; they do not by themselves establish why each respondent changed their view. The Gaza war, perceptions of the Israeli government, partisan polarization, generational differences and broader changes in American politics may all be relevant, but polling trends alone cannot assign a single cause.

Public attitudes and government policy are different questions

The central issue is therefore not whether the U.S.-Israel relationship has suddenly ended. It has not. Military cooperation, congressional involvement and diplomatic ties remain substantial.

Instead, the evidence points to a growing gap between the institutional durability of the relationship and a more divided American electorate. Younger Americans and Democrats have generally become more critical, while Republican opinion has remained more favorable on several measures, although younger Republicans have also shown increased negativity in Pew's surveys.

That divergence could matter over time because foreign policy is shaped not only by presidents and diplomats but also by Congress, elections, party coalitions and changing voter priorities. It would nevertheless be speculative to assume that today's polling will produce a particular future policy.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has survived disagreements between governments, wars, failed negotiations and repeated shifts in domestic politics. What has changed more clearly is the degree of public consensus surrounding it. The polling record through 2026 shows that American attitudes toward Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become substantially more divided than they were for much of the previous quarter-century.