A Six-Day War: Its Aftermath in American Public Opinion For 40 years, public opinion has consistently favored Israel over the Palestinians
by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life May 30, 2007
For six days, beginning June 5, 1967, Israel battled Egypt, Jordan and Syria. As a result of the fighting, Israel won control of the Sinai desert, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
For all of the 40 years since then, substantially larger numbers of Americans have placed their primary sympathy with Israel rather than with Arab states or with the Palestinians. That support is a near constant in American public opinion about the Middle East, beginning with Israel's creation as a state in May 1948.
[...]
American Support for Israel Rarely Wavers
Public opinion surveys over the years show that Americans' lopsided division of support in favor of Israel has persisted through every war in the region, through the making and collapse of peace agreements and through attacks and reprisals by all sides. The changing fortunes of Labor and Likud governments in Israel seemed to have little lasting impact on American sympathies. Neither has the rise and fall of Arab leaders, the central role gradually taken by the PLO or, since the late 1990s, the rise of the Islamic party Hamas.
Of course, as shown by the chart, variations in attitudes toward both Israel and the Arab states or Palestinians may be associated with particular events.
[...]
No Other Country Supports Israel So Strongly
In their opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Americans are distinctly different from people in other countries surveyed by Pew. In the 2006 Pew Global Attitudes survey, support for Israel was higher in the United States than in any of the other 14 countries surveyed. In two European countries (Great Britain and Spain), more people sided with the Palestinians than with Israel. In the five Muslim countries surveyed, the Palestinians were favored by large -- and in some instances overwhelming -- majorities (59% in Pakistan, 63% in Turkey, 72% in Indonesia, 97% in Egypt and Jordan).
[...]
Americans -- including Muslim-Americans -- express greater optimism than people elsewhere that an equitable solution can indeed be found. In a 2007 Pew survey, Muslim-Americans said by a margin of nearly 4-1 (61%-16%) that they believe a way can be found for Israel to exist so that the rights and needs of the Palestinians can be met. That is nearly the same response given by the U.S. public as a whole but dramatically different than the views expressed in seven predominately Muslim countries surveyed earlier by Pew. There, roughly half or more of the Muslims interviewed said Palestinian rights could not be taken care of as long as Israel existed.
Given demographic realities, Jewish support for Israel is at most a relatively small part of the overall American figure: Pew surveys find that Jews account for only about 2% of the U.S. population. However, support for Israel is especially high among white evangelical Protestants. They are also more likely than other Americans to identify their religious beliefs as the single largest influence in their support. In addition, substantial majorities of white evangelicals believe that Israel was given by God to the Jews (69%) and that Israel helps fulfill the New Testament prophecy of the second coming (59%). That greater support for Israel is also true of Hispanic evangelicals, compared with Hispanic Catholics and secular Hispanics.
[...]