TEHRAN – For decades, support for Israel functioned as a near-sacred pillar of American political life. It transcended party lines, survived wars and uprisings, and remained largely immune to shifts in public mood. That consensus is now visibly fracturing. The latest Gallup findings mark a historic inflection point: for the first time in a quarter century of polling, more Americans say they sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis. The shift is not marginal; it is structural, generational, and political.

The numbers themselves tell a story of erosion. Just before the October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent genocidal war on Gaza, 54 percent of Americans said they sympathized more with Israel, compared with 31 percent for Palestinians. Today, that margin has reversed, with 41 percent leaning toward Palestinians and 36 percent toward Israelis. Public opinion in the United States does not turn quickly on entrenched foreign policy commitments. When it does, it signals that the moral and political ground beneath those commitments has shifted.

The war in Gaza has been the catalytic event. Israel’s military campaign, which has killed more than 72,000 people in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, and reduced vast swaths of the enclave to rubble, has unfolded in real time before a global audience. Images of flattened neighborhoods, mass displacement, and civilian suffering have punctured decades of carefully curated narratives portraying Israel primarily as a besieged democracy acting in self-defense. For many Americans—especially younger ones—the scale and intensity of the destruction have raised profound questions about proportionality, accountability, and the moral cost of unconditional U.S. backing.

The generational divide is particularly telling. A majority of Americans aged 18 to 34 now sympathize more with Palestinians, while sympathy for Israel among this cohort has fallen to record lows. Younger Americans have grown up in a digital media ecosystem less dominated by traditional gatekeepers and more exposed to alternative perspectives, including Palestinian voices. They are also less tethered to Cold War frameworks that once cast Israel as a frontline ally in a binary struggle. For them, the conflict is increasingly framed in terms of human rights, occupation, and equality rather than strategic alignment.

The partisan breakdown underscores how deep the transformation runs. Democrats have decisively tilted toward Palestinians, and independents have now joined them in doing so. Even among Republicans—long the most steadfast base of pro-Israel sentiment—support has declined by 10 points since 2024, reaching its lowest level in two decades. This does not signal an immediate collapse of Republican backing, but it does reveal that even within conservative circles, Israel’s actions and the scale of U.S. support are no longer beyond scrutiny.

That scrutiny extends to Washington itself. For decades, Congress has provided Israel with billions in military aid annually, largely shielded from serious debate. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has seized on the new polling to argue that lawmakers are increasingly out of step with their constituents. In calling on Congress to “listen to the American people instead of anti-Palestinian lobby groups,” CAIR is articulating a growing perception: that U.S. policy toward Israel is driven less by democratic accountability and more by entrenched political interests.

The legal dimension has further complicated Israel’s international standing. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges related to crimes against humanity and war crimes. 
At the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s genocide case against Israel—joined by several other nations—has intensified global debate over the legal characterization of Israel’s actions in Gaza. While Washington has continued to defend Israel diplomatically and militarily, these developments have reinforced perceptions among many Americans that U.S. policy is shielding an ally accused of grave violations of international law.

Importantly, the decline in support did not begin with the current war. Gallup notes that attitudes have been gradually shifting since 2019. The Gaza assault appears less as an isolated trigger than as an accelerant of a longer-term reassessment. The cumulative effect of settlement expansion, repeated cycles of violence, and the absence of meaningful progress toward Palestinian statehood has eroded the once-dominant narrative of Israel as an embattled but fundamentally restrained actor.

Meanwhile, American support for the establishment of a Palestinian state remains steady, with roughly six in ten adults favoring it. This suggests that public opinion is not merely reacting emotionally to images of war but is aligning around a political vision that recognizes Palestinian self-determination as a legitimate and necessary outcome. The persistence of that support, even amid intense polarization, signals a broad appetite for a recalibration of U.S. policy.

What emerges from the data is not simply sympathy for Palestinians but fatigue with a status quo in which American taxpayers underwrite a military campaign many now view as disproportionate and morally indefensible. The perception that U.S. aid has facilitated devastation in Gaza has become harder to dismiss, particularly as civilian casualties mount and reconstruction costs soar.

The historic shift in public opinion does not automatically translate into immediate policy change. Institutional inertia, lobbying power, and strategic calculations remain formidable forces in Washington. Yet the erosion of bipartisan consensus is itself transformative. When the moral narrative that sustained unconditional support begins to crumble, so too does the political immunity that accompanied it.

The Gaza war has exposed a widening gap between American public sentiment and the policies pursued in its name. For the first time in a generation, sympathy for Palestinians has surpassed sympathy for Israelis. That reversal is more than a statistical milestone; it reflects a profound rethinking of power, justice, and accountability in U.S. foreign policy. Whether Congress and the White House heed that shift or continue to resist it may define not only the future of U.S.-Israel relations but also America’s credibility in claiming to stand for human rights on the global stage.