Majority of Americans Believe Israel’s Military Response to Hamas Justified, Poll Finds

A large majority of Americans believe that Israel’s military response to Hamas is justified in the wake of the Palestinian terrorist group’s brutal invasion of the Jewish state last weekend that left over 1,400 Israelis dead, according to a new poll.

CNN on Sunday released a new poll showing that 50 percent of the 1,003 US adult respondents said the Israeli government’s military response was “fully justified,” while another 20 percent said it was “partially justified.” Only 8 percent of Americans said that Israel was “not at all justified,” with the remainder unsure, according to the findings.

In total, the data found that 96 percent of Americans said they had “”a lot” or “some” sympathy for the Israeli people, with just 4 percent saying they had none at all.

The poll, conducted last week, also showed large amounts of American sympathy for the Palestinian people. However, the findings suggested that protests on college campuses and in some American cities against Israel’s response do not have significant support among the wider American public. Even among the two groups that were least supportive of Israel’s response — Americans aged 18-35 and people of color — the number of respondents who believed Israel’s response was fully justified was about double the number who believed it was not justified at all.

While Americans are largely united in their support for Israel’s military response, that unity is not reflected in their confidence in US President Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis, which remains starkly divided along partisan lines. Indeed, 53 percent of Americans said they did not trust Biden much or at all to make the right decisions about Israel, while 47 percent said they trusted him a great deal or moderately.

That opposition to Israel has been limited to the fringes of American political opinion has also led some Democrats to question the role within the party of groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), several chapters of which celebrated last weeks Hamas terrorist attack.

“The DSA’s response to the largest pogrom against Jews in decades is not just ‘devoid of empathy.’ It is barbaric,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) in a post on X/Twitter on Thursday. “The Disgraced Socialists of America has a barbaric ideology, and the world finally knows it.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said in an interview on Monday on MSNBC that the reaction from DSA members revealed a double standard from some New York officials when it comes to standing up for Jews and calling out antisemitism.

“While our Jewish brothers and sisters were mourning in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter that we saw in Israel, that you had the DSA and others carrying swastikas and calling for the extermination of Jewish peoples. That’s not acceptable,” Adams said.

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