A Gallup poll shows support for Israel at an all-time low. That’s bad news for Israel and worse news for America.
The poll, conducted Feb. 3-16, shows that only 46% of adults sympathize with Israel while 33% side with the Palestinians, 6 percentage points higher than last year.
It must be the terrorists’ humane treatment of their hostages – the ones they didn’t starve or torture to death – that accounts for increased support for their cause. Pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, rife with antisemitism, have doubtless played a part here too.
Sympathy for the Palestinians is highest among Democrats (59%), the young (48% of 18- to 34-year-olds) and those without a religious affiliation.
Israel has the backing of Republicans (75%), older Americans (56%), who can actually find the Middle East on a map, and White Evangelical Protestants (70%), who read the Bible more than they watch CNN.
Growth of opposition to the Jewish state is in part a product of coverage by the legacy media, which act as if there’s a real difference between the Palestinians and Hamas and uncritically accept casualty figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
Americans have notoriously short memories.
The horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 Israelis were murdered in cold blood and gut-wrenching atrocities (gang rape, sexual mutilation, babies cooked alive), fade into the background while fighting in the Gaza Strip is nightly news.
High school students are indoctrinated by their social studies teachers. Liberal professors propagandize college students. It would be instructive to compare support for the Palestinians and Israelis among Ph.D.s with blue-collar workers and first responders.
How many who sympathize with the Palestinians know that they were dancing in the streets on Sept. 11, 2001, celebrating the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans, or that Iran is their chief sponsor?
Gaza is one front of a world war. Every day, Christians are killed by Islamist terrorists somewhere in the world.
Christians are being persecuted, killed and displaced in 28 countries on the African continent. In Nigeria, 8,000 Christians were killed or abducted in 2023. According to Open Doors U.S., 16.2 million Christians have been displaced in sub-Saharan Africa.
A spiritual dimension to the conflict in the Middle East transcends geopolitics.
What accounts for America’s rise to greatness in so short a span of time – the blink of an eye in the course of recorded history?
This nation was founded by Christians who believed in the vision of the Jewish Bible. Benjamin Franklin wanted the Great Seal of the United States to depict Moses dividing the Red Sea.
Our history is miraculous.
It’s a miracle that we won our independence from a nation with the best army in the world. At several points in the War of Independence, the Continental Army almost collapsed.
It’s a miracle that we survived the Civil War.
If Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had won the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, the road to Washington would have been wide open and the war would have ended with two or three smaller nations, easy prey for European powers, in the place of the United States. Is it a coincidence that the president who guided us through that terrible ordeal was named Abraham, like the patriarch?
When America entered World War II, the Axis was poised to win. What if Germany or Japan got atomic weapons first? What if we lost the Cold War? After Vietnam, America was in retreat until President Reagan came along.
Now we have the most pro-Israel president since Reagan who came within a hair’s breadth of being assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania. The incident gave President Trump a belief in divine destiny that wasn’t there before.
Israel’s rebirth is a miracle – the first time that a people returned from 2,000 years of exile to reclaim their homeland. Its survival, against a foe that vastly outnumbered it, is another miracle.
God said he would bless those who bless the descendants of Abraham and curse those who curse them. Has any nation been better to the Jewish people than America or received more of his bounty? Still, future blessings aren’t guaranteed.
I don’t support Israel because I’m Jewish. Most liberal Jews don’t, including George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations fund pro-Hamas agitation on campus.
I support Israel because I’m a patriot who wants God to continue blessing America.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.
