This book examines trends in American public opinion about Israel in over 75 years, from 1944 to 2019. Analyzing data from hundreds of surveys in jargon-free writing, the authors show that public support for Israel has seen a dramatic shift toward increased division between partisan and select demographic groups, elaborating on the implications that this important change may have for the countries’ special relationship. Scholars and students of American foreign policy, public opinion, Middle East politics and international relations, as well as policy analysts, policymakers, journalists and anyone interested in American policy toward Israel, will want to read this book. Special Features An Online Appendix including all surveys used throughout the book. A Roper Center-approved Data Tool that allows readers to create their own figures based on data used in the book: https://www.idc.ac.il/en/schools/government/research/apoi/pages/data-tool.aspx

This book surveys discourse and opinion in the United States toward the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1991. Contrary to popular myth, it demonstrates that U.S. support for Israel is not based on the pro-Israel lobby, but rather is deeply rooted in American political culture. That support has increased since 9/11. However, the bulk of this increase has been among Republicans, conservatives, evangelicals, and Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, among Democrats, liberals, the Mainline Protestant Church, and non-Orthodox Jews, criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians has become more vociferous. This book works to explain this paradox.

Public Opinion and the Palestine Question (1987) analyses public opinion on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. It studies attitudes in various Western democratic countries and Israel, and examines whether the governments of those countries reflect the general positions on the issue of their people. It shows important changes taking place in the orientations of Western public opinion on the Palestinian question.

This study assesses the impact of changing narratives on public opinion toward the Palestine-Israel conflict. In contrast to other U.S.-Israel relations studies, but in accordance with some media influence and public opinion research, this study emphasizes the potential role of American public opinion in shaping U.S.-Israel relations. Furthermore, this study attempts to attribute the pro-Israel American attitude shown in Gallup polls to the lack of information about the Palestine-Israel conflict in American mainstream media. This study tests whether public opinion will shift after being exposed to different narratives that falls under one of three major perceptions reported in the current rhetoric regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: 1) Israelis are the victims of Palestinian aggression 2) Israel is a geo-strategic ally of the U.S. in a hostile region, 3) Israel, like the United States, is a liberal democracy. This research includes three primary source surveys to test the impact of biased narratives and unconventional information about Palestine and Israel on public opinion toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Arab-Israeli conflict constituted a serious problem for the American Left in the 1960s: pro-Palestinian activists hailed the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of a fundamental restructuring of the global imperialist order, while pro-Israeli leftists held a less revolutionary worldview that understood Israel as a paragon of democratic socialist virtue. This intra-left debate was in part doctrinal, in part generational. But further woven into this split were sometimes agonizing questions of identity. Jews were disproportionately well-represented in the Movement, and their personal and communal lives could deeply affect their stances vis-à-vis the Middle East. The Movement and the Middle East offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. Michael R. Fischbach draws on a deep well of original sources--from personal interviews to declassified FBI and CIA documents--to present a story of the left-wing responses to the question of Palestine and Israel. He shows how, as the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, weakening the Movement and leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.