CNN Poll: Americans are deeply sympathetic toward Israelis and see their military response to Hamas attacks as justified
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
www.cnn.com /2023/10/15/politics/cnn-poll-israel-hamas-war-americans/index.html
CNN Poll: Americans are deeply sympathetic toward Israelis and see their military response to Hamas attacks as justified
Jennifer Agiesta 5-6 minutes 10/15/2023
CNN —
The American public expresses deep sympathy for the Israeli people and broadly sees the Israeli government’s military response to Hamas’ attacks as justified, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS , and two-thirds are at least somewhat worried the fighting between Israel and Hamas could lead to terrorism in the US. The poll also finds divisions by party and age in how Americans view the conflict and the US response to it.
The public is mixed over how much trust it has in President Joe Biden to make the right decisions on the fighting between Israel and Hamas (47% have at least a moderate amount of trust), but they express slightly more confidence in Biden than they did at the outset of the war in Ukraine (42%).
Half of Americans (50%) say that the Israeli government’s military response to the Hamas attacks is fully justified, another 20% say it’s partially justified and just 8% that it is not at all justified, with 21% unsure. Republicans are far more likely than independents or Democrats to say the response is fully justified (68% of Republicans say so compared with 45% of independents and 38% of Democrats), and older Americans are also much likelier than younger ones to say it is completely justified (81% of those age 65 or older see the response as fully justified, compared with 56% of 50-to-64-year-olds, 44% of 35-to-49-year-olds and 27% of 18-to-34-year-olds). Majorities across age and party, though, say the Israeli response is at least partially justified, with very few Americans of any age or party affiliation saying the response is not at all justified.
A sizable 71% of Americans say they feel a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people over the attacks by Hamas on October 7, with nearly all, 96%, expressing at least some sympathy for them. A broad majority also feel at least some sympathy for the Palestinian people (87%), but fewer feel a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians (41%). Nearly all Americans (84%) express at least some sympathy for both Israeli and Palestinian people as they face ongoing fighting.
But here too, there are divides by age and party, with younger Americans and Democrats likelier to express a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people than Republicans and older Americans. Majorities across party lines express a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people (78% of Republicans, 68% of independents and 67% of Democrats), but there is a broad gap between the share of Democrats (49%) and independents (47%) who have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people and the share of Republicans who say the same (26%).
The division by age appears even wider: Among those age 65 or older, 87% have a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people, while 36% feel the same toward Palestinians. Among those younger than 35, 61% say they have a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people and nearly the same share, 54%, say the same about the Palestinian people.
Few Americans express a great deal of trust in Biden to make the right decisions on the situation in Israel (16%), with about 3 in 10 saying they trust him moderately (31%), 26% saying they have not much trust and 28% none at all. There are broad partisan gaps, with 80% of Democrats saying they trust Biden a great deal or moderately, compared with 46% of independents and just 13% of Republicans. The overall partisan divide is similar to the levels of trust placed in Biden to handle the war in Ukraine at its outset, but independents appear a bit more inclined to express trust in Biden now than they were around the start of the war in Ukraine (46% have at least a moderate amount of trust in Biden, 37% said the same in February 2022 on Ukraine).
About a third of all US adults, 35%, say the US is providing the right amount of assistance to Israel in response to the situation there, with 15% saying the US is providing too much assistance, 14% too little and another 36% unsure about whether the level of assistance is appropriate. Among those who say they are very closely following news about the conflict, 51% say US assistance is about right, 21% say it’s too little, 7% too much and 21% are unsure.
Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they are at least somewhat worried that the fighting between Israel and Hamas will lead to terrorism in the US. Older Americans (75% of those age 65 or older), women (72%) and Republicans (76%) appear most likely to be worried about the potential for terrorism in the US.
About 7 in 10 Americans, or 71%, say they’ve been following news about the fighting between Israel and Hamas at least somewhat closely, including 26% who are following it very closely.
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from October 12-13 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults surveyed by text message after being recruited using probability-based methods. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.
CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.
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There are a lot interesting things in this poll. 71% of Americans have a lot of sympathy for Israel, but only half think Israel's invasion of Gaza is fully justified.
41% of Americans have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians, that seems like a fairly strong number.
Older people and Republicans are more likely to strongly support Israel and younger people and Democrats are more likely to be sympathetic to the Palestinians. That is a curious breakdown.
This brings a couple question to mind:
How many of the people polled are truly knowledgeable of the past and current situation between Gaza, Hamas and Israel?
How many of the Palestinians in Gaza support the atrocities committed by Hamas.
How many Palestinians in Gaza think Israel has a right to exist?
How many Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas in general, how many of them see Hamas spending too much money on missiles and not enough money on them?
While the poll is interesting I don't put too much stock in it. Except maybe for the age difference. I would think the older folks may have a better understanding of what is really behind what is going on since they have lived through much more of the powder keg we call the middle east.
Personally I am glad the proper response is not a decision I have to make.
That is because the youth don't know the truth about the past. There is an alternate version they are hearing,
That’s what we teach our kids in school and where the sympathies of pop culture rest, so it become the default viewpoint of the young.
I have been reading a lot about this crisis. Lindsey Graham was on tv this morning saying that all Palestinians in Gaza do not want kill Israelis or destroy Israel. All Palestinians do not deny Israels right to exist.
I think there has to be more international co-operation from the major nations to broker some sort of solution to this horrible problem. It cannot go on indefinitely the way it is because periodically what is happening now will happen again.
I just watched an Israeli give his analysis of the history of the conflict and a profile of the men who commit atrocities (inside or outside of war).
This video echoes Graham's sentiments. Even the Arabs nations were brokering peace deals with Israel It could be because some Arab leaders have empathy for fellow humans or it could be because they profit more from peace than endless war.
I agree with you that there has to be international co-operation to broker a lasting peace. The majority of the world does not believe in the fatalistic, apocalyptic end to the world that is predicted by the Christian religion. So I don't know how successful negotiations can be if an inevitable apocalypse is ever considered a factor of why there cannot be peace in the Middle East.
Between the Oslo Accords and the 2nd Intifada, much progress had been made including a cease-fire. That came to an end with the August 2003 suicide bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, killing 22 and wounding 130. After that, the Israeli Cabinet decided to resume war with Hamas and other terrorist elements, and to stop any diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield to reoccupy the West Bank and parts of Gaza. Then they building a separation barrier in the West Bank.
Over the next several years, around 3500 people were killed with a 3:1 ratio Palestinians: Israelis.
There have been periodic futile attempts to return to negotiations since then. I think it was the 2nd Intifada that shifted public sentiment in Israel to the right on defense matters and help to keep Bibbi in office. Most Israelis by then turned their back on the plight of the Palestinians as has most Arab countries had done earlier.
After 75 years of being attacked, I don't see Israelis ever trusting a peace process again.
I feel like the understanding people have of this situation stretches back to about 2007 and no further. Without the context of the preceding 6 or 7 decades, all they can do is sympathize with the Palestinians. Incredibly, they view Israel as the aggressor. It blows my mind.
There seems to a willfull blindness to exactly what Hamas is and believes.
It's a death cult that just blew up dozens of its own citizens with a car bomb on one of the "escape routes" so it could blame Israel for it. They have interest in negotiated settlements and coexistence.
What is really odd to me is when you listen to people talk as though Palestine was ever a nation. There has never been a country called Palestine, and the idea that the people there have some historical claim to the land is also baffling. The region has seen changing rulers for millennia and migrations of people in and out for just as long.
Perhaps the Palestinians should try the Gandhi or civil rights movement strategy. Get you a lot more sympathy and has a record of success.
IMO that is the result of the downfall of the American education system along with the disinformation, misinformation and bias now universally circulated by the media and social news websites - too many younger people are incapable of critical thinking and are influenced by what they read, hear and watch on TV no matter its lack of veracity.
That is why Israel has no choice but to do whatever it takes to totally eradicate Hamas, even to seek out every Hamas member and Islamic Jihad member and their respective sympathizers.
Are you sure you didn't mean "...have NO interest..."?
People are funny about this stuff. They don’t like to see a real fight.
A bear can come into a neighborhood, killing animals - or even a person - and they’ll be horrified. “Something must be done!,” they exclaim. But then if you shoot the bear, they’re all, “how could you hurt the innocent animal?!”
A home invasion is wrong and terrifying for the occupants. But shoot the intruder, and many will say you’re a murderer.
Same shit going on with the Middle East. It’s terrible that Hamas attacks civilians, but apparently Israel is supposed to go hide in a cave somewhere and not fight back.
The was a series of articles written in the second half of the 19th century about Palestine. They paint a picture of a region with no real sense of private ownership, mismanagement and neglect by their Ottoman rulers.
It’s a very poor, dirty country and with no path forward. The forests are rapidly cut down and not replaced. Subsistence farming and mud roads. The small population lives in complete poverty in mud hovels with raggedy clothes.
Samuel Clemmons travelled through the Holy Land in 1867. He wrote of a desolate landscape and the ugliness of its people. He saw “a silent, mournful expanse,” dotted with “nasty” villages of “miserable huts” and “the usual assemblage of squalid humanity” — disfigured wretches “fringed with filthy rags” and “infested with vermin,” naked and “sore-eyed” children “in all stages of mutilation and decay.”
There is no reason to think that if Israel never existed, that this region would still have autocratic rule and tribal conflicts.
Not really that curious.
People that support Israel live in the real world. People that support Hamas live in coo coo land. Drill it down to the basics. Who, if attacked so viciously, wouldn’t do whatever they could to defend their country/families.
No one, not in reality.
No one.
Since 1948 what has Palestine accomplished? I can't think of one good thing. Israel, on the other hand has built a successful and prosperous nation.
Why do some support a bunch of terrorists and losers who have done nothing but cause problems
It seems like many go to college these days so the can say stupid things out loud.
Maybe they need to make College classes harder, so the students need to spend more time studying.
That’s to radical of an idea to be implemented.