By P.K.Balachandran/The Daily Times of Bangladesh

Colombo, February 28– US President Donald Trump has been losing support even in his  home turf, America, for his aggressive polices vis-à-vis Israel/Palestine and Iran, according to polls conducted by Gallup and YouGov.

The latest poll taken by Gallup found that Americans no longer preferred Israelis to the Palestinians. A poll done by YouGov for The Economist in June 2025 showed that 56% did not support the war with Iran.

US public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted in the past 12 months for the first time in Gallup’s annual measurement since 2001. Americans’ sympathies no longer lie more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians.

A YouGov/The Economist poll, conducted between June 13 and 16, 2025, had revealed that only 16% believed that the US should take military action against Iran. The survey reflected a growing public dissatisfaction with Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and a clear preference for peaceful resolutions. The  report showed that 56% of Americans supported diplomacy over force regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This included majorities in both political camps – 58% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans.

2026 Gallup poll on Israel/Palestine 

The latest Gallup poll on Israel/Palestine, published on Wednesday, said that 41% of Americans sympathised with the Palestinians in contrast to 36% who sympathised with the Israelis. A year ago, Israelis had a clear lead (46% for Israelis vs 33% for the Palestinians.

From 2001 to 2025, Israelis consistently held double-digit leads in Americans’ Middle East sympathies, with the gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018.

Independents

The Americans’ shifting sympathies regarding the Middle East situation this year are largely driven by changes among political independents. By 41% to 30%, Independents said they sympathised more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, whereas in all prior years, they were more sympathetic toward the Israelis, by 42% to 34% last year.

Democrats vs Republicans

65% of Democrats said that their sympathies lay more with the Palestinians, while 17% said that they sympathised more with the Israelis.

Republicans continued to express greater sympathy for the Israelis than the Palestinians. Seven in 10 Republicans (70%) said that they sympathised more with the Israelis, compared with 13% who sympathised more with the Palestinians.

Age Groups

Americans of all age groups have grown more sympathetic to the Palestinians in recent years. Among those aged 18 to 34, 53% said they sympathised more with the Palestinians, marking the first time a majority of this age group had expressed this view.

But 23% of young adults said that they sympathised more with the Israelis, a record low for the age group.

Views among those aged 35 to 54 had also shifted decisively. In 2026, 46% said that they sympathised more with the Palestinians, compared with 28% who sympathised more with the Israelis.

This is a near reversal of opinion among this age group compared with 2025, when 45% gave more sympathy to the Israelis and 33% to the Palestinians.

Among adults aged 55 and older, 49% sympathized more with the Israelis and 31% with the Palestinians, the first time since 2005 that less than half of older Americans had said they sympathised more with the Israelis. The 18-point lead for the Israelis also represented the narrowest gap in sympathies recorded for this age group.

Palestinian Territories

For the first time, as many Independents held a very or mostly favourable view of the Palestinian Territories as they did of Israel (both 41%). Over the past year, independents’ favourability toward Israel had declined six points, while their favourability toward the Palestinian Territories had risen by 10.

Looking at a longer time frame, however, the shift was more pronounced on the Israeli side. Since February 2023 — the last measurement before the Oct. 7 attacks, the independents’ favourability toward Israel had dropped 26 points, compared with a 12-point increase in their favourability toward the Palestinian Territories.

Among Democrats, the Palestinian Territories have held an edge in favourability since 2025. This year, 48% of Democrats view the Palestinian Territories favourably, compared with 34% for Israel, broadly in line with last year.

Republicans remain the most pro-Israel partisan group, with 69% holding a favourable view, though that figure had fallen 15 points from 2025 to its lowest level in over two decades.

Support for a Palestinian State

A 57% majority of US adults said that they favoured the establishment of an independent Palestinian State alongside Israel — often referred to as a “Two-State solution” — while 28% opposed it and 15% did not have an opinion.

Public opinion on this question had shifted less over recent years.  The 57% who favoured a Two-State solution in 2026 is similar to the 55% recorded in both 2023 and 2025. It nearly matches the record-high 58% of Americans who favoured the creation of an independent Palestinian state in 2003.

Support for a Two-State solution was highest among Democrats at 77%, and among Independents at 57%. Both figures were generally in line with what Gallup had measured since 2023.

Republican support has fluctuated notably in recent years. It declined from 43% before the Oct. 7, 223 Hamas attacks to 26% afterwards — the largest single-year drop recorded for any party group on this measure. Support then increased to 41% in 2025 before declining again to 33% in 2026.

With the exception of 2024, the current 44-point gap between Democrats and Republicans is the widest Gallup has recorded on this question.

Israeli and Palestinian Views

Interestingly, US adults remain much more supportive of a Two-State solution than Israelis or Palestinians themselves, as measured in Gallup’s World Poll. In the 2025 polling, only 27% of Israelis and 33% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem said they would support such a proposal.

Iran

As stated earlier, polling done for The Economist by YouGov in June 2025 showed that 56% of American adults opposed military involvement against 16% who supported it. Much of that was due to the memory of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which few Americans thought were worth their cost in blood and treasure, The Economist said in its analysis.

During his first term, President Donald Trump authorised only limited strikes, most notably the drone strike that assassinated Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general. But he withdrew American troops from northern Syria and signed a deal with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Restraint at that time reflected the way the MAGA faction wrested control of the Republican Party away from neoconservatives. Trump himself had warned that “our country is destroyed by a radical political class that sends our guardsmen and women to defend the borders of distant foreign nations”. He promised to “restore world peace” instead of conducting “endless wars”.

Against that background, the escalation of conflicts now could strain the President’s support, The Economist said. 

When asked about Donald Trump’s handling of Iran and Israel opinion was mixed. While 37% supported his policies, 41% disapproved of his approach to Iran, and 44% opposed his handling of Israel-related matters.

Many Americans (around 50%) viewed Iran as an enemy, but still, the majority preferred talks over war.

END