Two polls show wide U.S. support for Israel

Two new polls show that Americans support Israel by a wide margin, but one of them reveals Americans do not want the United States to take the lead in the Mideast peace process.

According to data gleaned from Gallup’s 2013 world affairs poll, 64 percent of Americans support Israel over the Palestinians, with 12 percent backing the Palestinians over Israel. The last time Israel garnered as much support from Americans was in 1991 during the Gulf War.

Meanwhile, an ABC News/Washington Post poll released March 18 showed that 55 percent of Americans sympathized more with Israel than with the Palestinian Authority. In this poll, 9 percent sympathized more with the P.A., 14 percent sympathized with neither side and 18 percent had no opinion.

The national Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 7-10, revealed that Republicans are much likelier than Democrats to favor the Israelis, 78 percent to 55 percent, with independents at 63 percent. And age is a factor: Older Americans backed Israel in the greatest numbers, with 71 percent among those 55 and older showing sympathy, vs. 65 percent among 35- to 54-year-olds and 55 percent among 18- to 34-year-olds.

Each age group polled 12 percent in favor of the Palestinians.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll also asked about the U.S. role in future peace talks. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said the United States should leave peace talks to the Israelis and Palestinians, while 26 percent said the U.S. should lead the negotiations. The 69 percent figure is 15 points higher than when the poll last asked about the U.S. role in peace talks 11 years ago, during the second intifada.

Conducted by Langer Associates, this poll sampled 1,001 respondents and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent. — jta