A recent poll by Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx), published just days before the outbreak of the war with Iran, found—for the first time—that more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than with the State of Israel. Among Democratic voters, the gap is especially striking: roughly two-thirds expressed greater sympathy for the Palestinians, compared to about one-fifth who said the same about Israel.

In Israel, the headlines were predictably alarmist, framing this shift as evidence of growing hostility toward Israel and Zionism—particularly within the Democratic Party. But a closer reading of the data reveals a far more complex reality, one that points to different and more nuanced conclusions.

Most surveys ask respondents a seemingly simple question: whose side are you on—Israel or the Palestinians? This framing imposes a zero-sum logic that fails to capture the views of many American Jews and Democrats, who reject such a binary choice. For them, it is entirely consistent to support Israel’s right to exist as a secure and democratic nation-state of the Jewish people while also supporting the Palestinians’ right to an independent state of their own.

An equally important question—rarely asked—is, which Israel are respondents thinking of? The answers in the Gallup poll likely reflect perceptions shaped by Israel’s recent right-wing governments.

Many American Jews and Democrats still identify with the vision laid out in Israel’s Declaration of Independence: a democratic, peace-seeking state committed to full equality for all its citizens, including non-Jews. What they struggle to support is the image projected by Israeli governments in recent decades—one associated with democratic backsliding, policies of exclusion,........

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