The poll is from Gallup, which for many years found a majority of Americans sided more with Israelis than Palestinians.
Three years ago, for example, 54% of Americans sympathized more with the Israelis, compared to 31% for the Palestinians.
Today, 41% say their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, and only 36% say the same about the Israelis.
Younger adults — those 18-34 in this poll — are also increasingly sympathetic toward the Palestinians.
Zachary Marschall, editor in chief of Campus Reform, thinks younger generations are driving this shift in American public opinion.
"This is coming from both the Left and the Right," he tells AFN. "We are seeing a resurgence of antisemitism from both the far left and the far right in recent years, and it is part of a long history of antisemitism being fashionable and seen as something to take part in. That is consistent with historical patterns in the United States and in the West."
Younger Americans' sympathies have been shifting toward the Palestinians since around 2020 and reached a new high this year.
But Ray Pritchard of Keep Believing Ministries told Today's Issues on American Family Radio that Americans' growing indifference to Israel has been around a lot longer than that.
"Support for Israel has been dropping steadily over the last 20 years. I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I'm not," he said.
Benedict Vigers, a senior global news writer at Gallup, says the shift is only "partly a generational story."
The new poll also found that middle-aged Americans (ages 35-54) for the first time expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Israelis. And while Americans over 55 are more sympathetic toward Israel, that gap is narrowing as well.
Marschall also makes note of the "single-minded focus on the Palestinian issue" among American activists, one that he finds disingenuous.
"You never hear them say anything about the plight of the Christians being slaughtered in Nigeria, and you never hear them say anything about the Iranians suffering under the Islamic Republic," he observes.
"I think this is just an explosion of disingenuous hatred of Israel and the Jews," Marschall concludes.
Historically, he says that has operated as currency on both ends of the political spectrum.
There are three main take-aways from the poll, Pritchard says:
-- "Terrorism actually pays. There's a reason why buses keep getting blown up.
-- "Second, the American media has played a role. Propaganda works. The left-leaning media has popularized the picture of Palestinian suffering and so-called genocide in Gaza."
-- "Third, Borders matter, and immigration control matters. When you let in an unlimited number of Islamic immigrants into European countries, it's going to change the nature of those countries. It is changing the nature of cities here in America."
