(JTA) — Support among Americans for creating a Palestinian state is at its lowest in nearly two decades, according to a new poll.
Asked “Do you support or oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” 39 percent of the respondents said they were in support and 36 percent said they were opposed, according to results from a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday. The remaining 25 percent expressed no opinion.
In 1998, asked in a Gallup poll if they favored a Palestinian state, 36 percent of Americans said yes and 26 percent said no, with 38 percent expressing no opinion. Five years later, another Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans were in favor of a Palestinian state and 22 percent opposed, with 20 percent having no opinion.
In the latest survey, 37 percent of respondents said they approved of the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was handling Israel’s relations with the United States, with 44 percent disapproving and 19 percent having no opinion.
The poll was conducted March 26-29 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults on both landlines and cellphones by Langer Research Associates of New York. The results have a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
