Over a Third of US Adults Say Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza: Poll

Forty percent of Jewish Americans regard Israel's current actions as justified, while 30 percent explicitly describe them as genocide, as US public support for the war continues to erode

A new AP-NORC poll published on 7 July has found that one-third of all US citizens now believe Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza — a figure that includes 30 percent of Jewish adults.

Only about two in ten Americans explicitly say that no genocide has been committed, while the remainder report that they are unsure or feel they lack enough information to decide.

The survey also points to withering popular support for Israel’s military campaigns, even among traditionally sympathetic constituencies. Whereas 75 percent of Jewish adults considered the response to the October 2023 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood justified at its outset, only around four in ten take that view of the current onslaught.

Democrats turn sharply against the war

Frustration is mounting fastest among Democrats. Some 58 percent — including 51 percent of Jewish Democrats — now say the United States is “too supportive” of Israelis, up from 45 percent in January 2024. At the same time, 62 percent of Democrats say Washington is “not supportive enough” of the Palestinians.

The shift is spreading across age groups: 57 percent of older Democrats now favour greater support for the Palestinians, compared with 39 percent two years ago.

Republicans remain more wedded to the status quo, with 60 percent describing US support as “about right.” Even so, appetite for deepening the alliance is fading — the share of Republicans who feel the US is “not supportive enough” of Israel has collapsed from 39 percent to 15 percent since 2024. Signs of internal division are also visible among younger Republicans, one in five of whom now describe Israel’s actions as genocide.

The trend is not new. Polling in April found that close to 60 percent of US citizens held an unfavourable view of Israel in the wake of the war on Iran, with younger Americans and the economic strains linked to that regional conflict helping to drive the change.

A mirror of Israel’s global isolation

The fracturing of opinion inside the United States reflects a wider collapse in Israel’s international standing amid its campaign in Gaza and its broader military aggression across the region.

A Pew Research Center poll released on 4 June, spanning 36 countries, found that a majority of people worldwide now hold an unfavourable view of Israel. In most of the countries surveyed, majorities also expressed no confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do the right thing in world affairs.

That isolation is deepest in Europe and in Muslim-majority nations, where opposition has become close to universal. In countries such as Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands, roughly half of the population holds a “very unfavourable” view of Israel, while at least 90 percent of left-leaning citizens across much of Europe and Australia view the state negatively.

Reference: The Cradle