Republican voters moving away from support for Israel

Donald Trump promised big changes in US Middle East policy. Now three months into his second term, not only has the situation in Israel’s war on Gaza deteriorated, but also his Republican voter base wants him to take a tougher stance to pressure Israel to change its behaviors.

This was one of the key findings in a poll released last week by the Arab American Institute Foundation. The Foundation commissioned John Zogby Strategies to poll 1,000 American voters to assess their attitudes toward the Trump administration’s policies toward Israel’s war in Gaza. Because they had conducted a similar poll toward the end of the Biden administration, they were able to assess where there were changes in the public’s views.

What comes through quite clearly is that while overall responses did not change significantly, Israel can be seen to be losing favor with Republicans who now want President Trump to take a stronger stance to rein in Israel’s behaviors. This, however, does not translate into a lack of GOP voters’ support for the president’s domestic policies on antisemitism, crackdown on universities, and deportation of students involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests.

Here are the findings:

The poll finds that voters’ sympathy for Israel remains somewhat higher than for Palestinians. But by a significant 46 per cent to 30 per cent margin, American voters feel that US Middle East policy is too one-sided in favor of Israel, with 39 per cent of Republicans agreeing and 37 per cent disagreeing. This represents a substantial shift from 2024 when only 33 per cent of Republicans agreed that policy was too pro-Israel versus 43 per cent who said it was not.

By a two to one margin, American voters also agree that President Trump should “apply greater pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands and allow Palestinians to create an independent state of their own.”  While this agree/disagree ratio largely tracks last year’s results, the major difference in this year’s findings is the substantial increase in the percentage of Republicans who agree that the president should apply such pressure on Israel. In 2024, the agree/disagree split for Republicans was 37 per cent to 40 per cent. Now 49 per cent agree that greater pressure should be applied as opposed to only 29 per cent who disagree.

When asked whether the US should always provide unrestricted aid to Israel or should restrict such aid if Israel “continues to operate in a way which puts civilian lives at risk in Gaza and Lebanon,” this year's results were essentially the same as last year’s. Twenty-three percent (23 per cent) are in favor of unrestricted aid, while 53 per cent are opposed.

A plurality of American voters also agree with the decisions of the International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s war in Gaza is tantamount to genocide and the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu for war crimes.

The bottom line in these initial results is that while Americans remain sympathetic to Israel, they continue to be opposed to Israeli policies and want the president, whether a Democrat or a Republican, to use US aid as leverage to change Israel’s actions. And the most interesting finding is that now a plurality of GOP voters, including those who self-identify as “born again Christians,” also want the president for whom they voted to crack down on Israel’s policies of bombing civilians and its occupation of Palestinian lands.

The responses are different, however, when it comes to measuring voters’ assessment of President Trump’s handling of the domestic fallout of the war in Gaza. Pluralities of American voters disagree with the administration’s decisions to deport student visa holders for their involvement in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests (saying that they “are antisemitic and pose a threat to the foreign policy of the United States”) or to cut funding from several universities charging that they have not agreed to demands that they do more to fight allegations of antisemitism. There is a deep partisan split on these issues with Democrats and Independent voters overwhelmingly opposed to the administration’s actions, and Republicans (including voters who are “born again”) strongly supportive of President Trump’s policies.

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute