Majority of Americans side with Israel, favor aid, arms sales - poll

For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 59% of respondents they sided more with Israel, while 24% said they support more the Palestinians.

US SOLDIERS stand in the background next to Israeli and American flags during an exercise in Israel. (photo credit: REUTERS)
US SOLDIERS stand in the background next to Israeli and American flags during an exercise in Israel.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The majority of Americans favor Israel in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as support Washington selling arms and providing military aid to the IDF, a Fox News poll released on Thursday revealed.
 
When asked whether they favor or oppose the US providing military aid to the IDF, 56% said that they either strongly or somewhat support this policy, as opposed to 38% strongly or somewhat against.
 
On the question of selling arms to Israel, 51% said they either strongly or somewhat support, whereas 44% said they either strongly or somewhat oppose weapons sales to Israel.
 
By party affiliation, 71% of Republicans support military aid for Israel, along with 67% who support arms sales. Democrats overall were less supportive of military aid (47%) and arms sales (42%) to Israel, according to Fox News.
 
For the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 59% of respondents they sided more with Israel, while 24% said they support the Palestinians more. Another 10% support neither side, and 7% said they did not know.
 
Some 78% of Republicans favor Israel and 10% the Palestinians. Among Democrats, support was more split, with 42% siding with Israel, and 35% for the Palestinians.
 
Awareness of news on the conflict was also high among respondents, with 66% saying they are closely following the news, in contrast to 33% of Americans not closely following. An equal percentage (70%) of Democrats and Republicans have been closely following events in the Middle East, while almost half (49%) of independents were closely following the situation.
 
The survey was conducted by Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), based on interviews with 1,003 randomly chosen registered US voters. The poll has a margin of sampling error of three percent