Two years of war have left Gaza deeply wounded and totally devastated. Most neighbourhoods have been literally wiped off the map, infrastructure has been reduced to rubble, and more than 67,000 people have died. The rest of the population are facing inhumane conditions including famine and a lack of basic services.
But, as many observers note, a faint light is emerging at the end of this seemingly endless tunnel with the birth of a dramatic reshaping of public opinion, political realignment, and even some breaking of long-term taboos. Observers insist that there is a profound change happening in attitudes towards Gaza and the Palestinians that can be seen unfolding from the United States to Europe.
Last year, this shift was most visible in an unprecedented wave of protests and public mobilisation across the West. This year, the change has perhaps been more vocal in changing political attitudes, generational realignments, and even some electoral outcomes.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had long been controversial, but when the Israeli war on Gaza saw new peaks of cruelty and intensity, there was a dramatic change in global perspectives on the Palestinian issue. A significant rupture seemed to unfold, sweeping universities, parliaments, the media across continents and, most prominently perhaps, social media.
“The change is visible on university campuses, on the streets, and in politics,” noted Erik Bleich, a professor of political science at Middlebury College in the US. “There were pro-Palestinian encampments at multiple universities in the spring of 2024, and some of the recent ‘No Kings’ [anti-Trump, pro-democracy] rallies had contingents of protestors carrying Palestinian flags.”
“Some politicians, particularly in the Democratic Party, now either openly support Palestine or refrain from their previous vocal support for Israel.”
Nothing illustrates this rupture more than the historic loss of the Democrats in last year’s US presidential polls, largely seen as punishment for their unrelenting support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The recent election of Zohran Mamdani, a vocal Muslim critic of Israeli policies and atrocities in Gaza, as mayor of New York, a US city with a large Jewish population, has been seen as equally significant, perhaps breaking decades of taboos.
Sitting among the rubble of the Gaza Strip, many traumatised Gazans were still able to flip through the news on their mobiles despite the poor networks and cheer the victory of 35-year-old Muslim candidate Mamdani in the New York mayoral race.
His triumph has been widely seen among Arabs and Muslims in general, and Gazans in particular, as perhaps ushering in a new democratic wave in the US.
Not that Mamdani’s election will really change US policies. What mattered most to many Gazans was the fact that their cause is resonating across the oceans and that it has become a driving force behind the polls in the world’s major superpower and particularly in a country historically known as Israel’s most important ally.
Social media were inundated with cheers of victory on the part of Gaza supporters and Palestinians. Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political faction in the West Bank, was quick to welcome the news on his account, describing it as a “youth-led revolution and a historic transformation”.
Equally enthusiastic was Hanan Ashrawi, chair of the Board of Trustees at Birzeit University in the West Bank and a former official of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). For Ashrawi, Mamdani’s victory was “a wake-up call to the US and the world, especially to the Democrats who worked against their own progressives”.
“It is a call that people are ready for change, and to the whole political system that the people are ready for social justice and inclusion. I think this heralds a new era in the US,” Ashrawi said.
On the other side of the Gazan border, Israeli officials were watching Mamdani’s victory news with anxiety.
“The Big Apple has fallen,” Avigdor Liberman, leader of a right-wing opposition party and a former Israeli foreign minister, said through a spokesman. He urged “New York Jews who want to survive” to emigrate “to where they belong — the land of Israel.”
There is no doubting that there is much going on in the US political scene that seems to be defying taboos with the emergence of voices that are breaking a decades-long silence over the Palestinian cause.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Mamdani’s electoral campaign, where his strong pro-Palestinian stance and vocal criticism of Israel was a departure from mainstream Democratic politics and a galvanising force behind his victory.
He has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, described its policies as “apartheid”, and he supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
His pro-Gaza stance resonated with many Muslim and Arab New Yorkers as well as with young progressive voters who were pleased to hear someone strongly standing up for Palestinian rights when the world remained silent over the genocide.
Analysts noted that the very fact that adopting an anti-Israeli stance would garner voters’ support was a symbol of a changing political landscape.
SURVEYS: Recent polls show a shift in US public perspectives on the war and plunging US public support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
A recent poll conducted by the Washington-based research firm Gallup reflected the American public’s dissatisfaction with US support for Israel in the war, suggesting that only 32 per cent of Americans approve of Israel’s military action in Gaza.
The Gallup survey found that “63 per cent of Democrats, 64 per cent of people of colour, and 67 per cent of young people aged 18 to 34 all opposed the war.”
A Pew Research Centre survey released in October showed that “nearly six out of 10 Americans, 59 per cent, now hold a negative view of Israel, while 39 per cent believe it is ‘going too far’ in its war in Gaza, compared with 31 per cent who held the same view a year ago, and 27 per cent who thought this just two months after the war.”
This stands in contrast to an earlier 2022 poll from the same organisation that showed that only 42 per cent of those surveyed had negative views of Israel. The surge in anti-Israel perspectives among Americans is confirmed by other polls.
“A recent New York Times/Siena poll showed pro-Palestinian sympathies outscoring support for Israel, albeit narrowly, by 35 to 34 per cent,” according to UK newspaper The Guardian.
One major shift is in the way people perceive the Israeli war on Gaza as a “genocide”. This was the finding of an Economist/YouGov poll in August showing that 45 per cent of the US public “believe Israel is committing genocide, a charge Israel vociferously denies, compared with only 31 per cent who disagreed”.
More surprisingly perhaps is that about “four in 10 American Jews believe the same,” according to a Washington Post poll.
An article headlined “How American Public Opinion on Palestine has Shifted”, authored by Geneive Abdo and published in the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, has attempted to find the reasons for the change.
“The main reason [behind the dramatic shift in the perception of Palestinians and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict] lies within the deep, overlapping connections among activists, particularly among the younger generation, who have tied opposition to Israel’s nearly hundred-year-old occupation of Palestine to the struggle for women’s rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, Black Lives Matter, indigenous rights, and the rights of Latinos and all people of colour in the United States,” Abdo said.
“Even churches, including those led by black clergy, of many religious denominations are holding vigils for the Palestinians and demanding a ceasefire.”
US Arabs and Muslim minorities have seemed “able to mobilise hundreds of thousands of demonstrators on the streets of Washington and other major cities because they no longer stood alone.”
Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official and a Democratic Party candidate for the US Senate in Michigan, similarly told the media that his recent campaign had revealed a shift in US perspectives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “irrespective of background”.
“We’ve now lived through a genocide, and that is bound to change public opinion in a pretty profound way,” El-Sayed said. “I’ve gone to a lot of communities where there are no Arab or Muslim residents, and when I talk about this issue, there is a collective sigh of relief. People think ‘finally there’s a politician who’s willing to name the obvious. Our tax dollars are being sent abroad to do unspeakable things instead of investing here at home.’”
Amid this mounting public protest at the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Israel’s standing has plummeted to perhaps unprecedented levels, while the Palestinian issue has gained more sympathy.
“Politicians, both Democratic and Republican, who would once have bitten their tongues rather than voice the mildest criticism of Israel, now openly decry the long-running Gaza offensive, with a small but growing number calling it genocide,” Guardian reporter Robert Tait wrote recently.
His article quotes a Gallup poll showing that “for the first time 60 per cent of Democrats hold a negative view of Israel, while 83 per cent of Republicans still support it.”
In the same vein, another survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center revealed that “53 per cent of American adults now view Israel negatively, an 11 per cent rise over the past three years.”
“Trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands at only 32 per cent, and just 46 per cent of Americans believe a two-state solution is feasible,” Pew said. “This widening partisan gap is expected to reshape Washington-Tel Aviv relations in the coming years.”
US President Donald Trump had earlier been quoted as saying that “Israel was the strongest lobby I’ve ever seen. They had total control over Congress, and now they don’t.”
The statement may explain why Trump has pushed to end the war in Gaza. But, more importantly, many commentators also refer to declining support for Israel among Democrats and their voter groups, a matter which may affect the next presidential race and US foreign policy.
“I don’t see a new democracy arising in the US, but I do see a long-term erosion of support for Israel in public opinion,” Bleich told Al-Ahram Weekly.
“For years, this was not reflected in the statements and positions of most politicians in the US. Now, some are beginning to openly question American support for Israel. If the trend continues, there may come a time when the US makes its financial and military support for Israel contingent on specific policy changes and outcomes.”
Abdo suggested that that “public determination to save Palestine is part of a larger fight against the old colonialist order.”
“In November, for example, thousands of Americans, including African-Americans, Latinos, and other minorities, marched from Brooklyn to Manhattan to demand a ceasefire and justice for Palestinians,” Abdo wrote.
EUROPE: Similar views have been sweeping the streets of Europe, with polls recording a similar swing in public perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian war.
“Public opinion in Europe is also sceptical about Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinians,” Bleich noted. “But that is less new in Europe than in the United States.”
“A recent YouGov survey found that fewer than a fifth of respondents in six countries hold a favourable opinion of Israel.”
An article called “Israel’s Historic Decline; Global Public Opinion turns against Tel Aviv” reviews international surveys showing that “Israel is facing a deep legitimacy crisis worldwide.” The article was published in nournews.ir, a media outlet that focuses on producing and publishing audio and video content.
“From Western youth to citizens across Europe and the United States, a majority hold negative views towards the existence and actions of this regime, while trust in its leadership has dropped to the lowest level in history,” the article said.
According to UK polls published on the same site, “a survey by Focaldata and UnHerd in the UK reveals that 54 per cent of young people aged 18 to 24 believe Israel should not exist, and 50 per cent hold the Israeli government mainly responsible for the Gaza war.”
A YouGov poll commissioned by the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD) in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden found that at least half of respondents favour banning arms sales to Israel. A large share also agrees with accusations of “genocide against Palestinians”, and most believe their national media are biased in Israel’s favour.
It is no wonder that pro-Palestinian rallies swept major European cities in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, particularly following the interception in October of the Sumud Flotilla made up of at least 44 civilian boats carrying some 500 activists from across Europe who volunteered in an attempt to break the Israeli siege of Gaza.
The Israeli detention of hundreds of the activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, sparked an international outcry and global protests demanding the release of the detainees.
The past two years have seen tens of thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets of many European cities, including Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, London, and Copenhagen, waving Palestinian flags, and chanting pro-Palestinian slogans.
Protesters in a recent Barcelona protest, for instance, urged their government to completely sever diplomatic ties with Israel and to implement a government plan to embargo arms sent to Israel.
Only a few months ago, tens of thousands of people marched in Rome in attempts to put pressure on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to take stronger action over the war on Gaza. Organisers told the media at the time that the protest attracted more than one million people, while police put the figure at around 250,000.
But whether this public uproar can help save Gaza or revive the Palestinian issue remains an open question.
A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace study titled “The Europeans Wake Up” by Michael Young similarly attempts to explore the significance of the rising support for Gaza across Europe and the US. Although many would celebrate the shift in Western public opinion, for Young “growing hostility to Israeli actions is too late to save the West from the lasting damage of Gaza.”
“Even while acknowledging this significant shift in European attitudes, if it could take months to reach a decision on so basic a matter as demanding the provision of food, water, and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, it is no surprise that Israel has been able to perpetrate what Israeli and international scholars and publicists are calling a genocide in the territory,” Young said.
For the time being, the real victory, perhaps, is in the fact that Gaza has become a symbol and a rallying point for those fighting for a fairer world.
“Gaza has become much more than that: it has also become a hook upon which countries of the Global South are hanging their challenge to the political superstructure of the post-World War II liberal international order,” Young concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 25 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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