New polls show growing American desire for Gaza ceasefire
New polls show rising preference in US public for Israel to wind down war against Hamas. Softening US support comes as US abstained on UN Security Council resolution today calling for extended pauses.
Two new polls show a growing desire among the American public for Israel to wind down its war against Hamas, amid anxiety over the toll it has taken on civilians in Gaza. The findings come as the U.S., UK and Russia abstained allowing passage of a UN Security Council resolution today calling for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza strip.
President Biden said Wednesday that he thinks Israel’s war against Hamas will continue until the group is not able to murder and terrorize Israelis.
“I think it’s going to stop when Hamas no longer maintains the capacity to murder and abuse and just do horrific things to the Israelis,” President Biden said at a press conference in San Francisco following his meeting with China’s Xi Wednesday night.
“Look, I made clear to the Israelis…to Bibi and to his war cabinet, that I think the only ultimate answer here is a two state solution that’s real,” he said.
Israel launched the war after Hamas militants massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, vowing to eradicate the terrorist group. The subsequent war has reportedly killed over 11,000 Palestinians and displaced over a million and a half people in the Palestinian enclave over the past five weeks.
American public support for the Israeli action has started to drop in that time, particularly among Democrats, the new polls find, while there is high support for American diplomacy to support humanitarian protections for civilians in Gaza as well as to try to free the over 200 hostages held by Hamas.
More than two thirds of respondents—68%--say they agreed with the statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate,” according to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll conducted Nov. 13-14.
Some 82% of respondents in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said they agreed with the statement that “Israel should pause military operations to allow humanitarian supplies to reach civilians.”
Some 79% of respondents said they agreed with the statement that “American diplomats should be actively working on a plan to allow civilians fleeing fighting in Gaza to find safe haven in the southern part of the Gaza strip.”
According to a new NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted Nov. 6-9, some 38% of respondents think “Israel’s military response to the attack by Hamas has been too much,” up 12 points from Oct. 11.
More striking, in the same poll, some 56% of Democratic respondents now believe Israel’s military response has been “too much,” up over 20 points since the Oct. 11 survey.
The softening in American public support for the Israeli military action, particularly among Democrats, comes as the United States abstained, rather than vetoed, a UN Security Council resolution on the Gaza war today demanding that all parties comply with international humanitarian law, and calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip…to enable… unhindered humanitarian access.”
The Malta-drafted resolution also calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, especially children.”
It passed with twelve nations voting in favor, and the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom abstaining.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking after the vote, indicated the United States did not vote for the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas or reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense. But the United States did not veto the resolution because it called for the release of hostages held by Hamas.
“Let’s be crystal clear: Hamas set this conflict in motion,” Thomas-Greenfield told the Council. “Ultimately, the United States could not vote yes on a text that did not condemn Hamas or reaffirm the right of all Member States to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks.”
“Although the United States is deeply disappointed by what is not in this text, we support many of the important provisions this Council has adopted,” she continued. “We fully support this resolution’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups.
“This is a humanitarian imperative,” she said. “We are working tirelessly to facilitate the safe return of all hostages, including nine missing Americans and one permanent U.S. citizen.”
The negotiations to free the hostages was the primary subject of a phone call US President Joe Biden held with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, the White House said, even as Biden was flying to California to meet with China’s Xi. “The President and the Prime Minister discussed at length ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas, including many children and a number of Americans,” the White House said in a readout of their latest call.
Biden NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Policy Barbara Leaf met with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv and with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah today. The primary focus of the current McGurk/Leaf trip to Israel, the PA, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar are efforts to free the hostages, the White House said.
“The primary focus is going to be ensuring that we’re freeing the hostages, and we’re doing everything we can to get them released, including Americans that are being held,” NSC spokesman John Kirby told journalists Tuesday. “He’s also going to be focusing on how we can contain this conflict….[and] prevent… any effort by anybody to deepen the conflict.”
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