For the first time in recent history, a majority of Americans now sympathize more with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, a Gallup poll found. According to the survey, sympathy for the Israeli cause has fallen by a record 10% in the past year.
A poll published Friday found that 41% of Americans say their empathy is false “More with the Palestinians” than Israelis, up from 33% last year. 36% say they empathize “More with the Israelis” down from 46% last year. The rest have no opinion or take sides.
When last year’s survey was taken, Israel was still waging war on multiple fronts and had killed 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza as of early February 2025. Since then Israel waged a 12-day war against Iran in June and struck a ceasefire deal with Hamas in October, which it has been accused of violating hundreds of times.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged declining support for Israel among Americans, which he partly blames. “Anti-Semitism” Content shared on social media. Israeli social media influencers, he argued in September “The most important weapon… to secure our base in the US.”
Public opinion in the US has tended to favor Israel since Gallup first began tracking the topic in 2001. This year’s poll marks the first time in 25 years that sympathy has shifted in favor of the Palestinians.
Democrats are most likely to sympathize with the Palestinians, with 65% in favor of them and 17% in favor of the Israelis. Opinion was almost evenly split among Democrats before the Israeli military began bombing Gaza in October 2023 in response to Hamas’ attacks on Israel. In 2022, 40% of Democrats sympathized with Israelis and 38% with Palestinians.
Americans of all ages have become more pro-Palestinian in recent years, with 18-34 and 35-54 year olds now sympathizing with Israelis.
Republicans and the elderly are the only demographics that now express a clear preference for Israel. 70% of Republicans and 49% of over-55s sympathize with the Israelis, while 13% and 31% of these groups favor the Palestinians, respectively.
Despite the pro-Palestinian shift, 46% of all Americans say they have a favorable view of the state of Israel, while 37% say they have a favorable view of the Palestinian territories, which the US does not recognize as a state.
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