More Democrats have sympathy for Palestinians than for Israelis amid their ongoing conflict, according to recent polling from Gallup. The shift marks the first time since Gallup began collecting this data in 2001 that members of either party have been more sympathetic to the Palestinians.The survey finds 49% of Democrats saying they're more sympathetic to Palestinians, while 38% say they’re more sympathetic to the Israelis.
Now, it is true that this is the first time that the question garnered more sympathy for Palestinian than for Israelis. But there is another part of the poll that, for some reason, the Israel haters and mainstream media are ignoring.
The poll had one other question: "I’d like your overall opinion of some foreign countries. What is your overall opinion of [country]? Is it very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable?"
For that question, 56% of Democrats answered that their opinion of Israel was favorable, while only 36% felt favorably towards the Palestinian entity.
In fact, the "favorable" question has shown a large preference for Israel that has been fairly consistent of more that 40 percentage points over time.
And while the media loves to make it sound like Democratic support for Israel is at an all-time low, it isn't so - they gave worse ratings in 2004 and 2010, for example.
To be sure, the Democratic support for Israel among the young has been flagging. There is reason for concern, as the anti-Israel players have the media and academia solidly on their side. But more Americans, including Democrats, feel warmly towards Israel and far fewer feel that way towards the Palestinian Authority even now.
There's another problem with the "sympathy" question. It reflects an either/or mentality, and there are good reasons to sympathize with Palestinians - I myself do. They are led by corrupt leaders and intimidated by their own terror groups, their leaders are against any serious peace deal, kids are taught in schools that their highest aspiration is to die as martyrs - there are very good reasons to sympathize with Palestinians. And if forced to choose between two sides for sympathy, Palestinians are in much worse shape than Israelis are.
The proper response should be that the question is flawed. It assumes a zero-sum game - that you can only pick one side for sympathy, that there is a winner and loser.
That is false.
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