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Many Americans, including Jewish individuals, are reportedly protesting against the Israeli government's operation in Gaza. They cite harsh and inhumane conditions as reasons for their protest.

As a foreigner, I therefore struggle to comprehend the rationale behind Biden's support for Israel. I thought he should've taken a more "balanced" approach, since his decisions in favor of Israel upset protesters and Muslim Americans, making it more difficult for him in the upcoming election.

Does Biden's support for Israel align with popular opinion in the US? Do opinion polls show that most people support Israel?

Rick Smith
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ŌHARA Kazutaka
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    TBH there's probably not a lot that's specific to Biden https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/39271/why-is-america-politically-allied-with-israel I'm holding off VTC this for now though, in case someone manages to come up with something more specific. – the gods from engineering Nov 16 '23 at 07:33
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    On your last point there is poll here https://www.npr.org/2023/11/15/1212913674/poll-israel-hamas-war-biden-democrats-republicans – the gods from engineering Nov 16 '23 at 07:45
  • @Fizz - Exactly. If 56% of Democrats and a larger portion of the other side want Israel to receive military funding for the war, Biden might see that more in his best interest. It is a very risky calculus, though, because that same poll shows support for Israel's actions declining over time, and there is an argument that people who oppose funding Israel's military operations are more bothered by the funding than its supporters would be by a lack of funding. – Obie 2.0 Nov 16 '23 at 08:12
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    I've attempted to salvage the question by focusing on your underlying concern, i.e. whether Biden's support for Israel aligns with public opinion. – F1Krazy Nov 16 '23 at 09:54
  • I have always assumed that the high levels of support for Israel in the US has more to do with bible-belt Christians than it does with Jews - who tend to be of a more gentrified and liberal leaning. The picture is quite different in Europe, where evangelical Christianity is far lower than in America, and there are far larger muslim populations (as a %) - esp in France, whose government is an outlier in calling for a ceasefire. (I may be wrong - please someone say if I am.) – WS2 Nov 16 '23 at 22:00
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    There's almost certainly a big difference between opinions about Israel and opinions about the Israeli government. The government has shifted significantly towards the right recently (e.g. the changes to judicial power, and the severity of the reaction to the Hamas attack). Israeli citizens are not overwhelmingly in favor of these policies. – Barmar Nov 16 '23 at 22:27
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    @Barmar But is there not a fundamental problem with "Zionism"? The idea of a state based around an ethno-religion is odd in today's international world. There is an added difficulty in that the Jewish population of Israel is almost universally urbane and European in origin, which gives it more than just the appearance of a colonial power. Paradoxically the land was given to the Jews by Balfour in 1917, at the same time the British Army was enaged with Arab tribes in freeing the land from the Turks. What remains has never worked, does not now work and it is hard to see how it will ever work. – WS2 Nov 17 '23 at 10:21
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    @WS2 I think that happened long enough ago that most Gentile Americans don't really think about it very much (I presume Jews are mostly Zionists); Israel as the Jewish state has been the status quo for 75 years. – Barmar Nov 17 '23 at 17:14
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    @Barmar But the Palestinians see them as an army of occupation. And their population lives behind secure walls, only 20% of them possessors of the all-important blue ID cards that allow them to enter Israel proper - even if they are in urgent need of medical attention. And all this while Jewish people enter and build settlements on land that strictly has been reserved for Palestine. Gaza has been referred to by commentators as "an open air prison". In the circumstances is it any wonder that things such as the 7th Oct events happen? – WS2 Nov 17 '23 at 17:44
  • @WS2 This question isn't about Palestinian opinions. – Barmar Nov 17 '23 at 17:54
  • @Barmar Very few questions ever are. – WS2 Nov 18 '23 at 10:55
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    FWTW, the results of such polls strongly depend on the wording, it seems. General preference for Israel, yes. Support for a ceasefire, also yes, more recently https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/82704/are-there-prior-examples-when-a-us-president-was-strongly-at-odds-with-the-grass – the gods from engineering Nov 18 '23 at 21:55
  • @WS2 - While I cannot say whether the Jewish population in Israel is overwhelmingly "urbane" (debonair or sophisticated), it is certainly true that they are largely "urban" (living in cities). However, it is not the case that they are overwhelmingly European in origin. Surveys from a few years ago, specifically "Ethnic origin and identity in the Jewish population of Israel," suggest about 45% as Mizrahi Jews (of mostly recent Middle Eastern descent) and about 3% as Beta Israel (Ethiopian), with the rest being of mostly European origin (Ashkenazi and some Sephardic). – Obie 2.0 Jan 03 '24 at 23:35
  • "Overwhelmingly" is not quite the word I would use there. I might say "a slight majority" or perhaps "more or less half to within the margin of error." People forget the influence of the massive Mizrahi immigration in the decades after the founding of Israel, and assume that the Jewish demographics from 1948 (mostly Ashkenazi) were preserved, but they were not. – Obie 2.0 Jan 03 '24 at 23:36
  • While I am sure that this may not be your case, there is a peculiar fixation on the (more or less real) Europeanness of Israelis. The foundation of Israel involved the expulsion and killing of many Arabs, non-Jewish Arabs have been second-class citizens in Israel from the beginning, and the most recent war has caused at least tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths—actions that are wrong independent of who engages in them. The fact that a plurality of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi and that Jews as an ethnicity and culture are of Middle Eastern origin subtracts literally not one iota from this. – Obie 2.0 Jan 03 '24 at 23:43
  • @Obie2.0 Many Israeli Jews may not strictly be of European origin - though the foundation is clearly a European one. In any event I believe the Mizrahi Jews were by and large "settlers", whose undoubted allegiance was to the Jewish foundation. So what you end up with is an indigenous Arab population who are effectively foreigners in their own land. And it is the settler community which has the wealth and powerful connections to the rich world. The only solution can be a muti-racial polity, but Israel isn't anywhere remotely close to that. – WS2 Jan 04 '24 at 10:56
  • @WS2 - Without disagreeing with the substance of what you say regarding the exclusion of non-Jewish Arabs, I feel rather uncomfortable declaring that a person born in Israel, whose parents were born in Israel, whose grandparents were born in Yemen and so on, is a "settler" in the sense that say, most of the Jewish Agency was. In much the same way as I would hesitate to call a third-generation descendant of Mexican immigrants a settler in the USA, regardless of allegiance they had to the government of the USA (which indubitably has continuity with a government created by European settlers). – Obie 2.0 Jan 04 '24 at 16:55
  • And even more so given that that group of Mizrahi Jews contains a small minority of people descended from Jews who had been living in what was then Palestine for a long time, before the British Mandate or even the Ottoman conquest. – Obie 2.0 Jan 04 '24 at 16:59
  • @Obie2.0 Whichever way you cut the cake there is no gainsaying the fact that there is a deep cultural and ethnic chasm in the society which calls itself "Israel". And there is also no doubt that the group who hold political control, are also the economically dominant one. And the walls and barriers that have been erected to exclude the untermenschen are utterly intolerable to what is morally acceptable to the twenty-first century first-world upon which the government of Israel is totally dependent for economic, political and military support. – WS2 Jan 04 '24 at 20:43

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In general support for Israel went up after Oct 7

When presented a series of options for American involvement in the conflict between the Israelis and Hamas in Gaza, more Americans (41%) say the U.S. should support Israel’s position than any other option. Republicans (54%) are more likely to say this than Democrats (37%).

That support has cooled somewhat in a more recent version of that same poll, but general support for Israel still runs decently high

Most (57%) view Israel favorably, a [seven] point drop from October (64%). A majority from both political parties view Israel favorably, but Republicans (71%) are more likely to do so than Democrats (57%).

Where support has dropped the most is within the Democratic Party itself. A different survey showed support for Democrats at 61% (adding "Too Little" and "About Right") in October. Less than a month later, that number was 38%.

Machavity
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    These results don't make sense — the results for the total population should be somewhere in between the results for Republicans and Democrats (unless, I guess, a significant part which doesn't view Israel favorably also doesn't choose a party) – Command Master Nov 16 '23 at 15:48
  • @CommandMaster If everyone was Dem or Rep that would be difficult but it includes some who don't support either party. And its figures for support for Ukraine are similarly skewed. From the small print "The sample ... includes 415 Democrats, 375 Republicans, and 132 independents." And btw "The poll also has a credibility interval of plus or minus 5.9 percentage points for Democrats, plus or minus 6.2 percentage points for Republicans, and plus or minus 10.4 percentage points for independents." – Stuart F Nov 16 '23 at 17:02
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One can imagine members of Congress, esp the House, have their ears close to the ground (i.e. pay a lot of attention) as to what their constituents want:

House passes resolution condemning Hamas attacks on Israel

Driving the news: The resolution received overwhelming bipartisan support, passing by a vote of 412-10.

Just nine Democrats voted against the measure: Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), André Carson (Ind.), Al Green (Texas), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.) and Ilham Omar (Minn.). Another half dozen Democrats, including Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), voted "present," while Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) voted against the measure.

Note that this is Oct 25th, quite a bit into the air strike campaign.

And while I am not going to expend the energy to confirm all of them, I recognize enough of those to think that most of the No voters are in very safe Democrat districts, where as a comment already noted, progressive voters are going to... what, vote for Trump (who would likely not be an improvement for Palestinians, on past record)???

And, again going by the list of Nays, this would totally be "Oh, Biden is in cahoots with THE RADICAL LEFT!!!" for Republican attack ads.

There are many reasons for America's support for Israel. But the Q's consideration of electoral calculations point precisely in the opposite direction of that cited in its premises:

Electorally, it pays to be for Israel, not against it.

Italian Philosophers 4 Monica
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Question:

Does Biden's support for Israel align with popular opinion in the US?

Answer:

Strictly on popular support no, not before the October attack when those favoring support for Israel in the US was about 40%. And not more recently when a poll found those favoring support for Israel had dropped to 31%. But its minority support has never been the most influential thing determining U.S. support for Israel. Long term this is an issue which could effect U.S. support for Israel, or not. Short term it has not been relevant in any national election where support for Israel is still the rule in Congress, Senate, and Executive for both parties.

US support for Israel is declining amid ongoing war in Gaza: Survey

In the U.S. , it's not about popular support. In order to be politically influential you need a significant group of voters who support or oppose one position strongly enough that it alone is highly influential on their vote. That Israel has enjoyed for decades on the Right and Left in both parties, and Israeli critics have not had in either party since the 50's or 60's, certainly many decades.

I'm thinking here of President Eisenhower.

Israel has historically and currently enjoyed strong support from Democrats and Republicans for entirely different reasons. The United States and Israel have long been sophisticated players in each others politics. Republican support has been more inline with the current Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been P.M off and on for the last 30 years. This has for a number of reasons begun to make Israeli governments under P.M. Netanyahu more supportive of Republican candidates politically and increasingly more dependent upon them for some of their more controversial policies. This is a trend playing out independent and long before the recent Gaza troubles. Long term this is an issue which could dramatically effect U.S. support for Israel, or not. Short term it has not been relevant in any election where support for Israel still the rule in Congress, Senate, and Executive for both parties.

Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023 given as reference.

The president’s blank-check support of Israel’s war on Gaza is alienating many of the Black and brown voters he needs to win reelection.

JMS
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