American opinions on Israel: The more things change ...

In Mid-East Conflicts, Americans Consistently Side with Israel (2006)

Compiled by Daily Star staff

June 02, 2007

Forty years after the 1967 war, substantially larger numbers of Americans have placed their primary sympathy with Israel rather than with Arab states or with the Palestinians, a US-based research center said in its latest survey. The war, which began with a massive Israeli air attack June 5, 1967, is described in the Arab world as "Al-Nakssa" or "the setback" after the devastating defeat of armies from Egypt, Jordan and Syria and the rise of Israel as the region's superpower.

During the war, Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsual, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Israel handed Sinai back to Egypt as part of the Camp David peace treaty, but has retained the rest in defiance of a UN Security Council resolution adopted by the United States and other major powers in November 1967.

In its survey, the Pew Research Center showed that support for the Jewish state has been a near constant in American public opinion about the Middle East, beginning with Israel's creation as a state in 1948.

Pew said that a Gallup poll three days before the outbreak of the 1967 war found "45 percent of Americans sympathized more with Israel than with the Arab states, 4 percent sympathized more with the Arab states and 26 percent with neither. Another 24 percent had no opinion."

In a survey conducted on the eve of the 1973 war, figures remained almost unchanged with "45 percent [of Americans saying they] had more sympathy for Israel, 5 percent for the Arab states, 23 percent for neither."

Since then, pollsters have asked Americans the same question almost every year since then, PEW said. From late 1973 to the late 1980s US public support for Arab states increased, albeit modestly. "About 9 percent when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Israel in 1977, rising to 13 percent in November 1978 following the signing of the Camp David Accords by Israel and Egypt in September of that year," PEW said.

Following Israel's 1978 invasion of South Lebanon, US public support for the Jewish state fell to 34 percent. Similarly, following Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the subsequent siege of Beirut, "the number of Americans who sympathized more with Israel or more with the Arab states was nearly equal: 32 percent sympathized more with Israel, 28 percent with Arab states. Another 21 percent sympathized with neither; 19 percent had no opinion," PEW said.

It has varied only modestly in surveys over the ensuing years, hitting a low point of 37 percent in July 2005, and rising somewhat by that October, after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Sympathy again rebounded, to a recent high of 52 percent, during the Israel's summer 2006 war on Lebanon.

With regard to the Palestinians, American sympathy generally rises when relations between Israel and the Palestinians show signs of growing closer, PEW surveys have shown. And it falls when Americans feel threatened by the Arab or Muslim world.

In their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Americans are distinctly different from people in other countries surveyed by Pew.

In the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes survey, support for Israel was higher in the United States than in any of the other 14 countries surveyed. In two European countries (Britain and Spain), more people sided with the Palestinians than with Israel. In the five Muslim countries surveyed, the Palestinians were favored by large majorities (59 percent in Pakistan, 63 percent in Turkey, 72 percent in Indonesia, 97 percent in Egypt and Jordan).

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, in an April telephone poll by Near East Consulting, most Palestinians (63 percent) said they supported a peace settlement with Israel, though the outlines of an agreement were not described. A smaller majority (57 percent) said Hamas should no longer call for the elimination of Israel. But support for a peaceful settlement and for a change in Hamas' policy was lower than in the year before.

In a 2007 Pew survey, Muslim-Americans said by a margin of nearly 4-1 (61percent-16 percent) that they believe a way can be found for Israel to exist so that the rights and needs of the Palestinians can be met. A survey conducted earlier this year in seven predominately Muslim countries surveyed earlier showed that roughly half or more of the Muslims interviewed said Palestinian rights could not be taken care of as long as Israel existed.

Further Reading:

The U.S. Public's Pro-Israel History