Sympathy for Palestinians is on the rise among Americans in general, and is up most sharply among young adults, according to a new survey.
The survey by the Pew Research Center published on May 5 found that 27 percent of millennials are more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israel, a threefold increase over 9 percent in 2006. The share of those who favor Israel has held steady at about 43 percent.
On Israel, the survey also shows one of the widest-ever gaps between the two main political parties: Democrats are four times as likely as Republicans to say they sympathize more with Palestinians than with Israel.
While self-identified Democrats are more likely to favor Israel over Palestinians (43 percent to 29 percent), they are far less sympathetic toward Israel than either Republicans or independents. Among self-identified Republicans, 75 percent say they sympathize more with Israel compared with 7 percent sympathizing more with Palestinians. Among independents, 52 percent sympathize with Israel and 19 percent with Palestinians.
The new data is part of a telephone survey of more than 4,000 American adults between April 4 and 24.
Among Americans overall, 54 percent say they sympathize more with Israel and 19 percent sympathize more with Palestinians; 13 percent say neither side and 3 percent say both. Compared to a similar survey conducted in July 2014, sympathy for Israel held steady while sympathy for Palestinians jumped by one-third, to 19 percent today from 14 percent in the earlier survey.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton are more likely to favor Israel over Palestinians (47 percent to 27 percent), while backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders are more likely to favor Palestinians (39 percent to 33 percent).
On the Republican side, conservative Republicans favor Israel somewhat more than moderate and liberal Republicans do (79 percent to 65 percent).
The survey shows older Americans overwhelmingly favoring Israel over Palestinians by a 4-to-1 margin, and Gen-Xers sympathizing with Israel more by roughly a 3-to-1 margin.
On other issues in the survey, 57 percent of respondents say they want America to deal with its own problems and let other countries sort out their problems on their own, while 37 percent say America should help other countries. Respondents identified ISIS as the top global threat facing America, followed by cyberattacks from other countries, the rapid spread of infectious diseases and refugees from the Middle East.
The largest partisan gap on major threats was on the issue of climate change: 77 percent of Democrats identified it as a leading global threat compared with 26 percent of Republicans.
There is a sharp partisan divide on the question of how best to defeat global terrorism: 70 percent of Republicans say overwhelming military force is the best approach, while 65 percent of Democrats say that just creates more hatred and terrorism. — jta