Israel is losing Americans.

Today, more than half of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel.

Our movement has helped propel a sea change in American public opinion and a massive rise in support for Palestinian freedom. Now, Congress is finally starting to catch up with their constituents. Over a quarter of the Senate recently voted to block bombs to the Israeli military. 

As the Israeli government grows more isolated abroad, and as more and more people in the U.S. oppose continued U.S. support for Israel, the Trump regime is turning to repressive tactics straight from an authoritarian playbook, desperate to quell popular demands for an end to the genocide.

Israel is losing Americans…

For two excruciating years, Palestinians have live-streamed the genocide being carried out against them. While scrolling through cooking videos and gardening tips on social media, every day Americans are being confronted with images of entire families set ablaze inside their makeshift tents, of emaciated men, women, and children being gunned down while trying to collect flour, of entire cities reduced to rubble. As awareness of these atrocities grew, the Palestine solidarity movement mobilized tens of thousands to take to the streets, refusing to allow the U.S.-backed genocide to become the new normal. 

Unable to look away from the crimes their tax dollars are funding, more Americans than ever before are calling for an end to U.S. support to Israel. And the Palestine solidarity movement is harnessing this popular outrage in order to force a shift in U.S. policy at the highest levels: ending U.S. arms to Israel, and ending the genocide. 

In 2022, 42% of American adults held an unfavorable view of Israel. That number has risen over 10 percentage points in the last three years, with 53% of adults now saying they hold somewhat or very unfavorable views of Israel.

This shift in public opinion is even more pronounced among young voters. Today, half of Republicans under 50 hold unfavorable views of Israel, up 15 percentage points from just 35% three years ago. Nearly three-fourths of Democrats under 50 hold unfavorable views of Israel. 

Another poll conducted in March 2025 shows that less than half of Americans (46%) said they sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians — the lowest in 25 years. The percentage of Americans who sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis has more than doubled in that time. Today, 40% of Americans believe that Israel is intentionally killing civilians in Gaza, up from just 22% in December 2023. A poll conducted in August showed 41% of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Our work is far from over, but it is starting to pay off in ways that are undeniable to those with a vested interest in prolonging the status quo. Today, there is a bill in the House to proactively block weapons to Israel — the first of its kind — with a list of dozens of cosponsors that is growing every day. In July, more than a quarter of the Senate voted to block weapons to Israel. In NYC, Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani overwhelmingly defeated disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for Mayor, showing that support for Palestinian freedom isn’t a political liability; it is popular among American voters.

…and the rest of the world.

Today, Israel is more isolated than it’s ever been. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an international fugitive who was forced to largely avoid European airspace during his recent trip to NYC, fearing that he could be detained in line with the ICC arrest warrant issued against him in 2024.

While Netanyahu addressed a nearly-empty room at the United Nations last week, Columbia and South Africa convened over 30 countries to coordinate legal, diplomatic, and economic measures to bring Israel’s genocide to an end. In July, several of those states agreed to immediately stop arms transfers to Israel and prevent vessels carrying arms to Israel from docking at their ports. 

The following month, Germany imposed partial restrictions on arms exports to Israel. In the weeks since, its government hasn’t approved a single new arms shipment to Israel. By mid-September, the European Commission had proposed suspending trade concessions with Israel and sanctioning “extremist” ministers in the Israeli government. 

And in the last two weeks alone, Britain, Canada, France, and Australia moved to recognize a Palestinian state, joining the over 150 countries across the world that have already done so, and Spain banned the U.S. from using its bases to transport weapons and ammunition to Israel. 

Governments like Germany — which has been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters and accounted for 30% of its arms imports between 2019-2023 — aren’t acting to hold Israel accountable on their own. 

None of this would be possible if public outrage hadn’t reached a tipping point, and if every day people hadn’t been moved to harness that outrage and take coordinated action to hold their elected officials’ feet to the fire. Dockworkers from France to Italy to Greece have refused to load arms components bound for Israel. Last week, dockworkers from across Europe converged in Italy to coordinate efforts to block arms shipments to Israel. Days earlier, unions across Italy called a nationwide strike, sparking massive pro-Palestine protests and bringing trains and highway transport to a standstill.

A sign of our opposition’s political weakness.

The Trump regime continues to fund and enable Israel’s genocide, despite the sea change in American public opinion and growing pressure from governments around the world. Netanyahu was the first foreign head of state to visit Trump at the White House, and he has travelled to meet with the president two other times since January. In that time, the Trump administration has lifted the Biden-imposed hold on 2,000-pound bombs and proposed billions in additional weapons sales to Israel. 

Out of step with the majority of Americans, the Trump administration and Israel’s other backers are turning to strongman tactics to quell popular support for an arms embargo: From the Trump regime’s abduction of pro-Palestine student activists, to its threats to revoke the nonprofit status of organizations it dislikes, to the ease with which it has forced university administrators to adopt its twisted line on antisemitism. The pro-genocide lobby also knows it‘s losing the narrative war: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent a jaw-dropping $65 million during the last two electoral cycles to try to kick pro-Palestine electeds out of office. That’s up from a mere $157,000 it spent on elections before 2021. 

And even as global outrage over Gaza grows, global leaders are taking Trump’s threats more seriously than ever before. The administration’s unpredictability — and Trump’s insistence on imposing his will on the entire world — has led many foreign leaders to resort to sycophancy to win the administration’s favor and avoid its ire. Seven different foreign leaders have nominated or endorsed Trump for the Nobel peace prize, among them Netanyahu.

The overwhelm we feel in this moment is intentional: Trump’s strongman tactics are designed to convince us that we’ve already lost. But Trump and the pro-genocide lobby are acting out of a clear sense of political weakness, not strength. 

It remains true that our movements have propelled a massive shift in American public opinion, with more than half of Americans now holding unfavorable views of Israel. It remains true that workers across Europe are bringing daily life to a halt and forcing their governments to catch up to popular demands for an arms embargo. It remains true that more than a quarter of the U.S. Senate just voted to block weapons to Israel: something that would’ve been unheard of two years ago. Global outrage has reached a boiling point, and our opposition is resorting to authoritarian tactics because they fear our power. 

The work of the U.S.-based Palestine solidarity movement is far from over, and that work is more under threat than ever before. As members of a movement that is on the front lines of the fight against trump’s fascism, our job is to refuse to allow Trump’s attacks to divide us or scare us into silence, and to keep driving a wedge between those politicians and institutions who continue to support genocide, and the majority of Americans who oppose their tax dollars being used to starve children and massacre families.

Act now: Tell Delaware to investigate Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed at so-called “aid distribution sites” run by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

GHF is registered in Delaware, but the Delaware Attorney General has so far failed to take action to investigate its abuses. Write to the Delaware AG now to demand she investigate and act to dissolve GHF’s corporate charter.

What we’re listening to: JVP Radio.

Mainstream media refuses to accurately report on the Palestine movement and erases Jewish opposition to the genocide in Gaza.

On the brand new podcast JVP Radio, our members and our partners in the movement tell our stories on our own terms. Listen to our latest episode, “Repression and Resistance,” out now.

High Holidays 2025/5786: Calling out for Justice.

This sacred time of the Days of Atonement demands that we recommit to the work of tikkun olam, repairing the world. That means doing everything in our power to end the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians and build a future of freedom and safety for Palestinians and all people.

Check out JVP’s list of resources for all kinds of practice over the High Holy Days.

With nearly 100,000 subscribers, the Wire is one of the largest American publications dedicated to justice. Every week, we cover important news from Palestine, the United States, and the Palestine solidarity movement — and provide ways to take action.

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