A United States flag flies in front of the U.S. Capitol dome at sunrise on the day of the U.S. midterm election as voters went to the polls across the country to elect 33 U.S. senators and all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2018.
Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey finds that American support for Israel in light of Israeli-Palestinian conflict has hit a 10-year low to 59 percent.
A Washington based analytics and advisory company, Gallup also says that 21 percent Americans sympathise with Palestinians.
The poll shows support for Israel among Americans has decreased from 64 percent to 59 percent in last year, the lowest percentage since 2009.
American people from both Democratic and Republican school of thoughts have seen a small drop for sympathies towards Israel in the past year.
Last year's figures were taken as the Trump administration was planning to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. But this week's reading shows that the percentage of conservatives that say they sympathize more with Israel in the conflict fell from 87 percent to 76 percent.
Although Democrats sympathizing with Israel fell less sharply, from 49% to 43%, this week's numbers are one of the lowest level of Democratic partiality towards Israel since 2005.
"Apart from the rank order, the gaps in net sympathy for Israel between the groups have been widening, with sympathy for Israel increasing among both Republican groups and decreasing among both Democratic groups," a Gallup poll read.
Liberal democrats in the US do not more sympathize with Israelis than with Palestinians, net difference between the sides decreased to 3 percent in 2019.
Speaking to TRT World Ramzy Baroud, an expert on Palestine and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com, said ordinary Americans are often misinformed on the question of Palestine as they tend to "understand the situation through the poor coverage of mainstream corporate media, which is traditionally biased towards Israel, often ignorant of basic facts and has long served as a platform for the official Israeli viewpoint.”
Baroud said that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is Israel’s most active lobby group in Washington, which has alone spent over 22 million dollars on lobbying efforts and campaign contributions in 2018, regularly offering fully-paid propaganda trips to Israel to hundreds of US members of Congress throughout the years.
“That has all is taken place within the larger cultural context shaped largely by decades-long brainwashing, lies and deception of Hollywood, where Israel is glorified and Palestinians are demonized. Many Americans who cannot even locate Palestine and Israel on a map view Israel in a positive sense and Palestine in a negative sense without knowing much in term of facts,” he said.
As Trump continues to ally himself with the Israeli right, taking more steps to cement Israeli claims to Jerusalem, support for Israel among Democrats is dwindling, according to Baroud.
“It now stands at all times low and is particularly low among young Americans, who see themselves as liberal, progressive or even socialist” he continued.
“The Trump-Netanyahu sinister alliance has forced many Americans to reconsider the positive representations they held of Israel throughout the years. This fact is also true in the case of young Jewish Americans, as they are turning against Israel, if compared to their parents and grandparents.”
Ilhan Omar questioning US support for Israel
The poll conducted by Gallup came after Representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota questioned the US support for Israel.
Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women in the US Congress, drew stern rebukes from Republicans and fellow Democrats on Monday after suggesting US support for Israel is fuelled by money from the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC.
The Minnesota freshman has faced criticism for weeks over her positions on the Jewish state, but it boiled over late Sunday after she reacted to a Republican critic in a tweet.
Omar has been critical of Israel's government over its treatment of Palestinians. She and fellow Muslim congressional freshman Rashida Tlaib's have supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to put economic and political pressure on Israel.
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