Majority of Americans Want Halt of US Weapons Bound for Israel: Poll

By Julia Conley

"Everyone knows that the U.S. could end this today if we wanted to," said one analyst.

A new poll released Tuesday revealed that a majority of Americans want to the U.S. government to stop supplying the Israeli military with weaponry to carry out its brutal assault on Gaza that has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, most of them civilian men, women, and children.

As organizers called on Democratic voters in at least seven states to vote "uncommitted" on their Super Tuesday primary ballots on Tuesday to help push the Biden administration to demand a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, the YouGov poll provided another measure of Americans' growing outrage over their government's material and political support for the "genocidal" campaign by Israel's far-right government.

Commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the poll of 1,000 U.S. adults asked respondents whether they agreed with the statement: "The U.S. should stop weapons shipments to Israel until Israel discontinues its attacks on the people of Gaza."

Fifty-two percent of people said they agreed with the statement, while just 27% said they disagreed.

CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot noted that while the call for a cease-fire "can mean different things to different people... the support for halting weapons shipments is specific and unambiguous."

Less than two weeks after scientists projected that at least 6,500 people would likely die in Gaza in the coming months even in the case of an immediate, permanent cease-fire, Weisbrot said many Americans may have "already moved past" the idea that a cease-fire is sufficient.

"Support for stopping U.S. weapons shipments to Israel has gained traction in recent days," noted CEPR, "as the Gaza death toll has surpassed 30,000 people, about two-thirds of them women and children."

Since the Biden administration's approval of weapons shipments to Israel since October, Israel has decimated civilian infrastructure across Gaza while also blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, leaving the entire population facing "crisis-level hunger" that is approaching famine in some areas.

"We have the power to stop this. Everyone knows that the U.S. could end this today if we wanted to," said Weisbrot, posting a video of European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell calling on U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to "provide less arms" to Israel, considering Biden's stated belief that too many civilians are being killed.

Tuesday's poll revealed that ending weapons shipments for Israel is popular across the political spectrum.

Sixty-two percent of people who voted for Biden in 2020 agreed that the U.S. should end shipments, while only 14% disagreed.

CEPR pointed out that "Among those who did not vote in the 2020 presidential elections—a key group containing voters that both Democrats and Republicans would like to turn out this year—fully 60% agreed that the U.S. should block weapons shipments."

The latter result is one "that the Biden campaign should be worried about," said Weisbrot. "These are the voters Biden needs to turn out to expand his base."

People who voted for former Republican President Donald Trump in 2020 were the only group in which a majority opposed halting weapons shipments, with 55% saying the shipments should continue. Thirty percent said they should stop.

This article originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 5th, 2024.  

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