Harun Nasrullah
Nearly half of US voters believe Washington is too supportive of Israel, while more now sympathise with Palestinians than Israelis, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released September 10.
The poll found 48 per cent of registered voters believe the US is too supportive of Israel, compared with 8 per cent who said it is not supportive enough and 34 per cent who said the level of support is about right.
The figure rose to 67 per cent among Democrats and 57 per cent among independents, compared with 17 per cent of Republicans. Among Republicans, 68 per cent believed US support was about right.
The poll also found 38 per cent sympathised more with Palestinians, compared with 35 per cent who favoured Israelis — the highest Palestinian and lowest Israeli figures since Quinnipiac began asking the question in 2001.
Among Democrats, 62 per cent sympathised more with Palestinians, compared with 14 per cent with Israelis. Among independents, the figures were 40 per cent and 29 per cent respectively. Republicans continued to favour Israel, with 64 per cent sympathising more with Israelis and 13 per cent with Palestinians.
The findings follow a sustained shift in Quinnipiac’s polling on US support for Israel.
In a poll conducted in June and released June 24, 48 per cent of voters said the US was too supportive of Israel, a new high at the time. The figure was 66 per cent among Democrats, 55 per cent among independents and 20 per cent among Republicans.
Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said: “Netanyahu gets poor marks from American voters as their appetite for supporting Israel wanes.”
The shift is particularly marked compared with January 2017, when just 16 per cent of voters said the US was too supportive of Israel. At the time, 31 per cent said it was not supportive enough and 46 per cent said the level of support was about right.
The proportion saying the US was too supportive rose to 40 per cent in August 2025 and reached 48 per cent in June 2026, with the September poll showing that the figure has remained at that level.
The findings come amid continuing debate in Washington over US military and political support for Israel.
On September 3, Reuters reported that civil rights and advocacy groups were urging lawmakers to remove a provision from the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would expand US-Israel military cooperation, including joint military technology development and US-based co-production partnerships.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen criticised the provision, telling Reuters it ,“threatens to compromise sensitive technologies” and could give the Israeli government the ability to interfere in US defence decisions.
The US provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in military assistance under the current agreement, which expires in 2028.
The Quinnipiac poll did not directly ask whether military assistance should be reduced or ended. It measured whether voters viewed overall US support for Israel as too high, too low or about right.
The September survey of 970 registered voters was conducted September 3–6 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
