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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Democrats and Republicans split on Israel’s responsibility for war’s escalation

by

116 days ago
20241030
Israeli police and rescue services inspect the site where a truck driver rammed into a bus stop near an army base, wounding dozens of people, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli police and rescue services inspect the site where a truck driver rammed into a bus stop near an army base, wounding dozens of people, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Oded Balilty

Many Amer­i­can vot­ers are con­cerned that the on­go­ing Mid­dle East con­flict will es­ca­late in­to an all-out re­gion­al war, a new poll finds. About half of vot­ers are “ex­treme­ly” or “very” wor­ried about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a broad­er war in the re­gion.

Though there is con­cern about the con­flict grow­ing, ac­cord­ing to the sur­vey from the AP-NORC Cen­ter for Pub­lic Af­fairs Re­search, few­er vot­ers — around 4 in 10 — are con­cerned that the Unit­ed States will be drawn in­to a war in the Mid­dle East. This poll was con­duct­ed pri­or to Is­rael’s strike on mil­i­tary bases in Iran on Fri­day.

The con­flict in the Mid­dle East has be­come a ma­jor cam­paign is­sue as for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris at­tempt to win over Mus­lim and Jew­ish vot­ers in bat­tle­ground states like Michi­gan and Penn­syl­va­nia. And al­though De­moc­rats and Re­pub­li­cans are sim­i­lar­ly wor­ried about the po­ten­tial for the war to ex­pand, they dis­agree about who is to blame for its re­cent es­ca­la­tion and how the U.S. should be in­volved go­ing for­ward.

Par­ti­san di­vide on Is­raeli gov­ern­ment’s lev­el of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty

About 6 in 10 vot­ers say the Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant group Hamas, the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment and the Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbol­lah have “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the es­ca­la­tion of the war in the Mid­dle East. Rough­ly 4 in 10 vot­ers think the Is­raeli gov­ern­ment has “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and on­ly about 2 in 10 say the U.S. gov­ern­ment has “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

But there’s a big par­ti­san split on whether the Is­raeli gov­ern­ment bears “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the war’s es­ca­la­tion. About 6 in 10 De­moc­rats say they do — sim­i­lar to the share of De­moc­rats who say Hamas bears “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty — while on­ly about one-quar­ter of Re­pub­li­cans say the Is­raeli gov­ern­ment bears “a lot” of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Vot­ers sup­port Iran sanc­tions, but not send­ing US troops

Vot­ers broad­ly sup­port eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on Iran, which could hin­der sup­port to its proxy groups Hezbol­lah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. A ma­jor­i­ty, 55%, are in fa­vor of im­pos­ing sanc­tions. They are about even­ly di­vid­ed on whether the U.S. should be pro­vid­ing weapons to Is­rael’s mil­i­tary, and vot­ers are more like­ly to op­pose send­ing gov­ern­ment funds to aid Is­rael’s mil­i­tary than to sup­port it.

De­ploy­ing U.S. troops to aid Is­rael’s mil­i­tary gar­ners lit­tle sup­port among vot­ers, re­gard­less of their par­ti­san af­fil­i­a­tion. About half of vot­ers op­pose de­ploy­ing U.S. troops to aid Is­rael’s mil­i­tary. On­ly about 2 in 10 vot­ers favour de­ploy­ing U.S. troops to as­sist Is­rael, and a sim­i­lar share have a neu­tral view.

Many think the US is do­ing what it can on cease-fire ef­forts

The U.S. is still press­ing for any move­ment on short-term cease-fire pro­pos­als, de­spite let­downs in the past and lit­tle ex­pec­ta­tion of im­me­di­ate break­throughs ahead of the elec­tion.

About half of vot­ers think the U.S. is do­ing “about as much as it can” to push for a cease-fire agree­ment be­tween Is­rael and Hamas and Hezbol­lah, while 3 in 10 say it could be do­ing more. Rough­ly 2 in 10 vot­ers say the U.S. should be do­ing less.

Re­pub­li­cans are more like­ly than De­moc­rats to want less U.S. in­volve­ment in cease-fire ef­forts. About 3 in 10 Re­pub­li­cans say the U.S. should do less, com­pared to about 1 in 10 De­moc­rats. About 6 in 10 De­moc­rats say the U.S. is do­ing what it can, com­pared to about 4 in 10 Re­pub­li­cans.

De­moc­rats, Re­pub­li­cans and in­de­pen­dents are about equal­ly like­ly to say the U.S. could be do­ing more.

The poll of 1,072 adults was con­duct­ed Oct. 11-14, 2024, us­ing a sam­ple drawn from NORC’s prob­a­bil­i­ty-based AmeriSpeak Pan­el, which is de­signed to be rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion. The mar­gin of sam­pling er­ror for reg­is­tered vot­ers is plus or mi­nus 4.2 per­cent­age points.

WASH­ING­TON (AP) —

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