Gallup: 55% of Americans disapprove Israeli action in Gaza

[Sir Mohamed]

Netanyahu is doing a great job in losing public support across the board. The only party benefitting from this are Hamas terrorists.

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1772995446631239764

[GP270watch]

Starving children to death will never be popular policy.

[Horus]

Sad that it took half a year for a majority of Americans to come to their senses.

[MyLifeIsYours]

Sad that it took half a year for a majority of Americans to come to their senses.

Polls back in December showed a call for immediate ceasefire was popular across all party lines. It is just getting out of hand now the world is seeing starving children whose homes have been demolished by Bibi.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Why are all polls on this issue so schizophrenic? We just saw a poll a few days ago with 60%+ of the respondents saying Israel was at least partially justified.

[Agafin]

Israel has the right to defend itself. While worldwide opinion is turning against them, I hope they hold firm. A precedent cannot be established that all terrorists need to do to evade accountability is capture hostages and hide behind human shields. Destroy Hamas!

[T'Chenka]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

[jojoju1998]

Israel has the right to defend itself. While worldwide opinion is turning against them, I hope they hold firm. A precedent cannot be established that all terrorists need to do to evade accountability is capture hostages and hide behind human shields. Destroy Hamas!

As I said in the internatoinal thread,

"But you're never going to completely crush Hamas. That seems to be the problem. There's an analogy I like to use, imagine all the ants, crawling in your home, and the only tool you have is a baseball bat, and in your efforts to kill the ants, you demolish your home, but the ants are still going to come.

That's where Israel is right now."

[Electric Circus]

Why are all polls on this issue so schizophrenic? We just saw a poll a few days ago with 60%+ of the respondents saying Israel was at least partially justified.

Competing values. The median American believes that Israel has a right to defend itself, and feels disgusted by Hamas, but they also don't like what they're seeing in Gaza.

How the prompts are worded always matters, but it's especially important in these situations.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

Just talking hypothetically then, if MS-13 won the Presidency in Mexico, ruled it as a narco-terror state, then launched a wave attack on California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas that killed 45,000 people and took around 5,000 hostages, there is a VERY high chance that, yes, the United States would very quickly drop a nuke on Mexico City. Would this be a good idea? No, but let's not pretend that a proportional attack on most countries would not result in an absolute scorched-earth war.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

Why are all polls on this issue so schizophrenic? We just saw a poll a few days ago with 60%+ of the respondents saying Israel was at least partially justified.

it's not mutually exclusive, Israel did have justification to strike against Hamas, 100%. 10/7 was horrific. But in their response, they've gone way too far and at this point have gone beyond Hamas and are just destroying the lives of those in Gaza.

[Redban]

Screw both Israel and Hamas. Let them deal with their own issues. We have own country to worry about

[kwabbit]

Israel has the right to defend itself. While worldwide opinion is turning against them, I hope they hold firm. A precedent cannot be established that all terrorists need to do to evade accountability is capture hostages and hide behind human shields. Destroy Hamas!

As I said in the internatoinal thread,

"But you're never going to completely crush Hamas. That seems to be the problem. There's an analogy I like to use, imagine all the ants, crawling in your home, and the only tool you have is a baseball bat, and in your efforts to kill the ants, you demolish your home, but the ants are still going to come.

That's where Israel is right now."

Israel could absolutely destroy Hamas in Gaza with a prolonged occupation. Antiterrorism campaigns conducted by advanced militaries have actually been quite successful. The notion that Israel's campaign in Gaza will lead to more radicalism in Gaza is not exactly accurate. Israel is truly reducing the number of deaths within Israel to terrorism by attempting to destroy Hamas, it's just that it might be losing an equal or greater amount of its young people in the campaign in addition to the tens of thousands of Gazans dying. I think arguing that the campaign in Gaza will hurt Israel in the future weakens the pro-ceasefire argument. A better argument is that Israel is gaining nothing from this now because, outside of the massive failure of the Israeli government to prevent 10/7 when it easily could have, terrorist attacks into Israel have been largely ineffectual and a return to the status quo pre-10/7 is better than a post-10/7 world with no Hamas and 5k Israeli soldiers dead.

[MyLifeIsYours]

Israel has the right to defend itself. While worldwide opinion is turning against them, I hope they hold firm. A precedent cannot be established that all terrorists need to do to evade accountability is capture hostages and hide behind human shields. Destroy Hamas!

As I said in the internatoinal thread,

"But you're never going to completely crush Hamas. That seems to be the problem. There's an analogy I like to use, imagine all the ants, crawling in your home, and the only tool you have is a baseball bat, and in your efforts to kill the ants, you demolish your home, but the ants are still going to come.

That's where Israel is right now."

Israel could absolutely destroy Hamas in Gaza with a prolonged occupation. Antiterrorism campaigns conducted by advanced militaries have actually been quite successful. The notion that Israel's campaign in Gaza will lead to more radicalism in Gaza is not exactly accurate. Israel is truly reducing the number of deaths within Israel to terrorism by attempting to destroy Hamas, it's just that it might be losing an equal or greater amount of its young people in the campaign in addition to the tens of thousands of Gazans dying. I think arguing that the campaign in Gaza will hurt Israel in the future weakens the pro-ceasefire argument. A better argument is that Israel is gaining nothing from this now because, outside of the massive failure of the Israeli government to prevent 10/7 when it easily could have, terrorist attacks into Israel have been largely ineffectual and a return to the status quo pre-10/7 is better than a post-10/7 world with no Hamas and 5k Israeli soldiers dead.

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was surely a success. You know it when troops have been stationed there fighting for two decades.

[kwabbit]

Israel has the right to defend itself. While worldwide opinion is turning against them, I hope they hold firm. A precedent cannot be established that all terrorists need to do to evade accountability is capture hostages and hide behind human shields. Destroy Hamas!

As I said in the internatoinal thread,

"But you're never going to completely crush Hamas. That seems to be the problem. There's an analogy I like to use, imagine all the ants, crawling in your home, and the only tool you have is a baseball bat, and in your efforts to kill the ants, you demolish your home, but the ants are still going to come.

That's where Israel is right now."

Israel could absolutely destroy Hamas in Gaza with a prolonged occupation. Antiterrorism campaigns conducted by advanced militaries have actually been quite successful. The notion that Israel's campaign in Gaza will lead to more radicalism in Gaza is not exactly accurate. Israel is truly reducing the number of deaths within Israel to terrorism by attempting to destroy Hamas, it's just that it might be losing an equal or greater amount of its young people in the campaign in addition to the tens of thousands of Gazans dying. I think arguing that the campaign in Gaza will hurt Israel in the future weakens the pro-ceasefire argument. A better argument is that Israel is gaining nothing from this now because, outside of the massive failure of the Israeli government to prevent 10/7 when it easily could have, terrorist attacks into Israel have been largely ineffectual and a return to the status quo pre-10/7 is better than a post-10/7 world with no Hamas and 5k Israeli soldiers dead.

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was surely a success. You know it when troops have been stationed there fighting for two decades.

A lot of the problem in the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan was that the US put too much trust in pro-Western Iraqi and Afghani troops who revealed themselves incapable of fighting insurgencies. If the US had surge-level troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan those wars would have been much more successful. Instead, politically expedient half measures led to further instability.

I like to think of it as a metaphor of demolishing a building and constructing a new one. If you demolish the building but don't clear the rubble then you've accomplished nothing and gone backwards. The US demolished the building, cleared out some rubble, then left the Iraqis/Afghanis to clear it out, build a foundation, and construct the building without any tools to do so. When the US came back and cleared out more rubble things got better but again left without finishing the job. Nation-building is not impossible, it's just a costly and lengthy process.

If Israel were to leave Gaza now, a still partially intact Hamas would recover eventually. Israel either has to finish the job and completely dismantle Hamas or withdraw and guard its borders more vigilantly against future terrorism. It might take 5 or 10 years for Israel to destroy terrorism in Gaza and build the foundation for a more prosperous Gazan society, but it can be done. The bigger problem is that Israel seems ambivalent (or even opposed) to the advancement of Gazans and definitely does not want a Palestinian state, so they might not build a foundation for a prosperous society.

[T'Chenka]

Screw both Israel and Hamas. Let them deal with their own issues. We have own country to worry about

Isolationism doesn't work in the 21st century. This is basic entry-level knowledge.

[dead0man]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

if the mayor of Toronto (with the help of the other people in charge) was still raping my niece every morning after coffee, has my buddy's grandma in handcuffs and nobody knows the status of your boss's wife (last seen beaten and bruised in the back of a Toronto Public Works truck) I would still be attacking Toronto.  Would you not?

[Progressive Pessimist]

No matter what the polls say, this conflict needs to end as fast and peacefully as possible for the sake of all nations involved.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Why are all polls on this issue so schizophrenic? We just saw a poll a few days ago with 60%+ of the respondents saying Israel was at least partially justified.

Confusing and emotive issue with lots of strong opinions seemingly both backed up with facts that most people don't know much about equals volatile polls very dependent on the particulars of the poll (wording etc).

[T'Chenka]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

if the mayor of Toronto (with the help of the other people in charge) was still raping my niece every morning after coffee, has my buddy's grandma in handcuffs and nobody knows the status of your boss's wife (last seen beaten and bruised in the back of a Toronto Public Works truck) I would still be attacking Toronto.  Would you not?

Depends what you mean by "attacking Toronto". Dropping bombs on buildings and neighbourhoods full of civilians because there was a rumour that the mayor or one of the guilty police officers had been spotted there recently? Absolutely not.

[dead0man]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

if the mayor of Toronto (with the help of the other people in charge) was still raping my niece every morning after coffee, has my buddy's grandma in handcuffs and nobody knows the status of your boss's wife (last seen beaten and bruised in the back of a Toronto Public Works truck) I would still be attacking Toronto.  Would you not?

Depends what you mean by "attacking Toronto". Dropping bombs on buildings and neighbourhoods full of civilians because there was a rumour that the mayor or one of the guilty police officers had been spotted there recently? Absolutely not.

sure, it's a good argument, but everyone calling for a cease fire while my niece is getting raped is an asshole.  Toronto needs to give up the hostages and turn the guilty over to face justice, then the attacks will stop.

[AtorBoltox]

Screw both Israel and Hamas. Let them deal with their own issues. We have own country to worry about

Isolationism doesn't work in the 21st century. This is basic entry-level knowledge.

This would be a good point if leftists didn't oppose American involvement in literally every other international issue except Israel/Palestine

[Vosem]

Unfortunate, as American support for Israel seems disproportionately focused on the areas where I think it is sort of questionable, or should reasonably be subject to review (eg, polls have >70% of Americans thinking an Israel is in our strategic interests, and 60-65% supporting further military aid, both of which I guess I agree with but neither of which strike me as obvious), while the kinds of support I think are not reasonable to argue with are more controversial.

I still tend to think that Israeli military actions tend to increase support for Israel in most societies (at least Western societies) -- the evidence for this is very strong -- but this seems to be true in spite of those actions themselves being somewhat controversial; as I've detailed to Wiswylfen and Snowstalker this is more because of the content of the opposition to those actions rather than support for those actions themselves as such. (Ie, the real nature of the general pro-Israel surge in the US and Western Europe in the 21st century is not really pro-Israeli but anti-Palestinian).

[OSR stands with Israel]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

If Canada attacked the US , then yes we’d invade and occupy it until regime change was completed . Also it would not be ethnic cleansing for us to warn civilians in cities to leave before we invaded it because doing so would save lives.

This is party of the ridiculous standards the left puts on Israel :

- If Israel warns civilians in a particular city to leave before they attack - The left yells how Israel is committing ethnic cleansing

- If Israel does not warn civilians to leave - The left accuses Israel of intentionally killing civilians and committing genocide

[GALeftist]

Israel has the right to defend itself.

If the mayor of Toronto and a squad of Toronto police officers break into your home and kill your family members, you don't get to nuke downtown Toronto and kill tens of thousands in retaliation. There's no justification.

If Canada attacked the US , then yes we’d invade and occupy it until regime change was completed . Also it would not be ethnic cleansing for us to warn civilians in cities to leave before we invaded it because doing so would save lives.

This is party of the ridiculous standards the left puts on Israel :

- If Israel warns civilians in a particular city to leave before they attack - The left yells how Israel is committing ethnic cleansing

- If Israel does not warn civilians to leave - The left accuses Israel of intentionally killing civilians and committing genocide

The obvious difference here, setting aside the fact that Israel is simply not going far enough to ensure that Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not harmed, is that the United States is not currently occupying and actively colonizing the rest of Canada. People are reasonably suspicious of Israel because it has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate that it would like to annex large fractions of Palestinian land.