Survey: 60% of American Jews Support Establishment of Palestinian State

A Palestinian flag hangs on a tent at the protest encampment at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, on May 1, 2024. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag hangs on a tent at the protest encampment at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, on May 1, 2024. (AFP)
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Survey: 60% of American Jews Support Establishment of Palestinian State

A Palestinian flag hangs on a tent at the protest encampment at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, on May 1, 2024. (AFP)
A Palestinian flag hangs on a tent at the protest encampment at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, on May 1, 2024. (AFP)

About 60% of American Jews support the establishment of a Palestinian state, found a survey by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs last week.

The survey showed that American Jews are affected by the growing differences between their government and Israel, and therefore, share views that differ from Israeli public.

About 52% of the 511 American Jews surveyed by the Center regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict said they supported US President Joe Biden’s decision to potentially withhold arms shipments to Israel if it continued its offensive in the Rafah border.

Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf, the head of the team of researchers that conducted the survey, said approximately 33% of respondents agreed with the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, including 13% who said they strongly agree.

He noted that in the aftermath of the Israeli army’s entry into the Rafah border area and Biden’s announcement of a potential arms embargo should Israel continue its offensive into Rafah, the Center noticed a great deal of activity both in the media and on the American streets.

The survey aims mainly to highlight the views of American Jews on a number of subjects and how they may have been influenced by events in Israel, Gaza, and in the United States, Mansdorf said.

Its results indicate a general feeling of apprehension and concern for the future of American Jewry.

Despite a significant awareness of the complex situation, there is a notable suspicion and skepticism towards Israel and the actions of its government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also, support for Israel remains robust but conditional. About a quarter indicated unconditional support, while another quarter supported Israel but not the current Israeli government.

Mansdorf explained that although a third of the respondents increased their support for Israel as a result of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities, a quarter indicated that their support for Israel had decreased.

Meanwhile, 28% of the respondents expressed great concern about their future or their family's future as Americans Jews in light of events unfolding on US campuses. Furthermore, 13% expressed little concern, while only 8% expressed no concern at all.

The survey also shed light on the attitude of American Jews towards the upcoming US elections. It said 26% of respondents said they were closer to Biden while only 13% indicated that they would abstain from voting. Despite the arms embargo on Israel, Biden is still absolutely ahead of other Jewish competitors in the United States, the survey showed.

Mansdorf said American Jews are also concerned about personal relationships with non-Jews, which had reportedly deteriorated since the onset of anti-Israel demonstrations in the US.

Most respondents said they experienced negative impacts in their relationships with non-Jewish neighbors, friends, and colleagues as a result of the war and demonstrations.

When considering voting for progressive candidates like Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar over a moderate Republican, 26% of respondents said they would, with 13% abstaining and a similar amount expressing indecisiveness.

Also, the survey showed that Biden enjoys substantial support for re-election, leading former US President Donald Trump by a wide margin (52-11).

While support for a two-state solution to end the Palestinian-Israel conflict is declining among Israeli public opinion, the support among US Jews is rising, the survey revealed.

It said 12% of respondents back a totally independent Palestinian state with no conditions attached, 24% support a totally independent Palestinian state that must recognize Israel as a Jewish state, while 25% said an independent state for Palestinians must be demilitarized and accept Israel as a Jewish state.

It then showed that 16% support a confederation between Israel and a Palestinian entity with negotiated security arrangements while 5% said they are against any form of Palestinian state.

Mansdorf concluded that the survey highlights a community in flux, grappling with its traditional liberal values and evolving perspectives on Israel.

While support for Israel remains strong, it is increasingly conditional, reflecting a shift in how American Jewry relates to the current Israeli government and the broader conflict, the survey said.



'We Will Die from Hunger': Gazans Decry Israel's UNRWA Ban

 Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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'We Will Die from Hunger': Gazans Decry Israel's UNRWA Ban

 Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

After surviving more than a year of war in Gaza, Aisha Khaled is now afraid of dying of hunger if vital aid is cut off next year by a new Israeli law banning the UN Palestinian relief agency from operating in its territory.

The law, which has been widely criticised internationally, is due to come into effect in late January and could deny Khaled and thousands of others their main source of aid at a time when everything around them is being destroyed.

"For me and for a million refugees, if the aid stops, we will end. We will die from hunger not from war," the 31-year-old volunteer teacher told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"If the school closes, where do we go? All the aspects of our lives are dependent on the agency: flour, food, water ...(medical) treatment, hospitals," Khaled said from an UNRWA school in Nuseirat in central Gaza.

"We depend on them after God," she said.

UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, running the enclave's schools, healthcare clinics and other social services, as well as distributing aid.

Now, UNRWA-run buildings, including schools, are home to thousands forced to flee their homes after Israeli airstrikes reduced towns across the strip to wastelands of rubble.

UNRWA shelters have been frequently bombed during the year-long war, and at least 220 UNRWA staff have been killed, Reuters reported.

If the Israeli law as passed last month does come into effect, the consequences would be "catastrophic," said Inas Hamdan, UNRWA's Gaza communications officer.

"There are two million people in Gaza who rely on UNRWA for survival, including food assistance and primary healthcare," she said.

The law banning UNRWA applies to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 during the Six-Day War.

Israeli lawmakers who drafted the ban cited what they described as the involvement of a handful of UNRWA's thousands of staffers in the attack on southern Israel last year that triggered the war and said some staff were members of Hamas and other armed groups.

FRAGILE LIFELINE

The war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas attack. Israel's military campaign has levelled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say. Up to 10,000 people are believed to be dead and uncounted under the rubble, according to Gaza's Civil Emergency Service.

Most of the strip's 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting and destruction.

The ban ends Israel's decades-long agreement with UNRWA that covered the protection, movement and diplomatic immunity of the agency in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

For many Palestinians, UNRWA aid is their only lifeline, and it is a fragile one.

Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza, where Israel renewed an offensive last month.

Israel rejected the famine warning, saying it was based on "partial, biased data".

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, said last week that it was continuing to "facilitate the implementation of humanitarian efforts" in Gaza.

But UN data shows the amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level in a year and the United Nations has accused Israel of hindering and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to the north.

"The daily average of humanitarian trucks the Israeli authorities allowed into Gaza last month is 30 trucks a day," Hamdan said, adding that the figure represents 6% of the supplies that were allowed into Gaza before this war began.

"More aid must be sent to Gaza, and UNRWA work should be facilitated to manage this aid entering Gaza," she said.

'BACKBONE' OF AID SYSTEM

Many other aid organizations rely on UNRWA to help them deliver aid and UN officials say the agency is the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza.

"From our perspective, and I am sure from many of the other humanitarian actors, it's an impossible task (to replace UNRWA)," said Oxfam GB's humanitarian lead Magnus Corfixen in a phone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"The priority is to ensure that they will remain ... because they are essential for us," he said.

UNRWA supports other agencies with logistics, helping them source the fuel they need to move staff and power desalination plants, he said.

"Without them, we will struggle with access to warehouses, having access to fuel, having access to trucks, being able to move around, being able to coordinate," Corfixen said, describing UNRWA as "essential".

UNRWA schools also offer rare respite for traumatised children who have lost everything.

Twelve-year-old Lamar Younis Abu Zraid fled her home in Maghazi in central Gaza at the beginning of the war last year.

The UNRWA school she used to attend as a student has become a shelter, and she herself has been living in another school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat for a year.

Despite the upheaval, in the UNRWA shelter she can enjoy some of the things she liked doing before war broke out.

She can see friends, attend classes, do arts and crafts and join singing sessions. Other activities are painfully new but necessary, like mental health support sessions to cope with what is happening.

She too is aware of the fragility of the lifeline she has been given. Now she has to share one copybook with a friend because supplies have run out.

"Before they used to give us books and pens, now they are not available," she said.