The TIPP Israel Survey: Are American Opinions On Israel Really Shifting In The Leadup To The 2022 Mid-Term Elections?

Editor's note: tippinsights gratefully acknowledges its collaboration with the Center for Security Policy on the simultaneous and exclusive release of this important story.

The new TIPP survey on Israel follows a number of similar recent polls taken around the flare up in violence between Israel and Hamas in May.  The preponderance of media attention to the earlier polls both in America and Israel has focused on data that is presented as representing a significant shift in U.S. opinion away from Israel reflected in the aggressively pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel rhetoric and attempted legislative actions of the so-called “Squad” in the House of Representatives.  Much of this analysis depends on intangibles, however, such as assertions that it is noteworthy that a Democrat member of Congress traditionally supportive of Israel might even consider opposing a given arms sale.  In addition, the May Economist/YouGov poll that purportedly showed a parity between American support for Israelis and the Palestinians significantly polled “sympathy” for both groups, not support for the nation of Israel—and it is not unnatural to have sympathy for both groups while having views on where America’s strategic interests lie.

Digging more deeply into the TIPP data suggests that while supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance will find some numbers of concern, support for Israel remains strong the real concerns may be on the part of Democrats who understand the value of the strategic relationship with the Jewish State and also have constituents who do not want them to be seen as not renouncing the related recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in the United States forcefully enough.

Some additional context for this analysis: