Poll: Majority of U.S. Muslims say Hamas attacks were at least somewhat justified

Anti-Israel demonstration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham on Oct. 19. Courtesy Southern Jewish Life.

by David Swindle and Menachem Wecker

(JNS) — More than half (57.5 percent) of Muslim American respondents to a new survey agreed that Hamas was at least somewhat justified in attacking Israel “as part of their struggle for a Palestinian state.”

That group was about evenly divided between those who somewhat agreed (29.3 percent) and those who strongly agreed (28.2 percent), while 88.5 percent of Jewish Americans said that Hamas was not even somewhat justified.

That’s according to the general population survey that Cygnal conducted between Oct. 16 and 18. There were 2,020 respondents, and the polling firm — which earns a top rating from FiveThirtyEight — oversampled Jewish and Muslim Americans.

“They respectively make up 2 percent and 1 percent of the population — sizes that aren’t large enough in a [2,020-person] survey to be statically relevant [if they are not oversampled],” Brent Buchanan, president and founder of Cygnal, told JNS.

The survey included responses from 300 Jewish Americans and 150 Muslim Americans, he said.

Democrats, Republicans, Independents and evangelicals were proportional to the general population, and although the survey mentioned different Jewish denominations, “we weren’t trying to achieve any set quotas in these groups,” Buchanan told JNS. “Our intent was to get a view of what all Jewish Americans as a whole believe, not what individual segments within the religion think.”

Overall, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a 39.9 percent favorable and 25.1 percent unfavorable rating, while Jewish Americans saw the Israeli leader more favorably (56.9 percent favorable; 29.9percent unfavorable) and Muslim Americans less favorably (36.2 percent,  39.4 percent).

U.S. President Joe Biden fared similarly: a 41.5 percent overall approval rating (notedly with a 52.7 percent disapproval rating), with 58.1 percent of Jewish Americans approving (38.8 percent disapproving) and 45 percent of Muslim Americans approving (45.8 percent disapproving).

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh earned significantly worse marks.

Abbas had an overall 12.9 percent favorable and 39.2 percent unfavorable rating, with 12.2 percent of Jewish Americans approving (61.5 percent disapproving) compared to 44 percent of Muslim Americans who approved of him.

Haniyeh had a 9.5 percent overall favorability (56.1 percent unfavorability), with 7.2 percent of Jewish Americans approving and 76.4 percent disapproving, and 38.6 percent of Muslim Americans approving and 34.5 percent disapproving.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who on Oct. 24 drew fire for saying that the Hamas terrorist attack didn’t happen in a vacuum, split the difference between Biden and Netanyahu on the one hand, and Abbas and Haniyeh on the other. Overall, 26.2 percent of respondents approved of the U.N. leader and 23.5 percent saw him unfavorably, while Jewish Americans approved at a rate of 28.2 percent (22.4 percent disapproved) and 35.8 percent of Muslim Americans approved, while 24.9 percent did not.

Ali Khamenei, Iranian supreme leader, had an overall favorability of 10.6 percent (48.1 percent unfavorable), with just some 4.5 percent of Jewish Americans approving (70.9 percent disapproved) and 31.3 percent of Muslim Americans approving (34.4 percent disapproving).

“Our latest data shows that while the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinian people are not new to the American people, we have entered an equivalent to the post-September 11 era, and the sentiment among our citizens from this point forward will largely be guided by this sad and dark moment in history,” Buchanan stated in an announcement.

“This is not just due to their knowledge of the always-tense relations in Israel and the region as a whole, but also because of the added dynamics of Iran’s involvement, President Biden’s visit to Israel and an overall acknowledgment that we have surpassed critical inflection points which threaten to fuel the conflict further,” he added.