The crumbling illusion: Why American public opinion on Israel is shifting

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the Israeli Consulate and marched on the streets to protest Israel’s attack on Gaza, Palestine, in San Francisco, California, United States, on March 18, 2025. [Tayfun Coşkun – Anadolu Agency]

For the first time in decades, the public in the United States and across the West has begun to see Israel’s wars and occupation for what they truly are: acts of systemic injustice driven by malevolence and impunity. Social media has removed the familiar whitewash of mainstream filters, revealing truths long concealed behind carefully managed narratives that presented Israel as a victim and Palestinians as faceless aggressors.

At first, the shift in public opinion was dismissed as a fleeting wave of online teenage outrage. Others within the Zionist establishment ignored it altogether, clinging to an arrogant chutzpah born of decades of unchallenged influence over Western media. Convinced that control over the traditional press and elected officials made public sentiment irrelevant; they believed their “sophisticated” propaganda could always bring people back into their corral. Israel-firsters failed to understand that this time something fundamental had changed: people now had direct access to unfiltered images, eyewitness testimonies, and voices from Gaza that no amount of spin could erase.

Recent polling confirms just how profound this shift has become. Citing new Quinnipiac and New York Times polls, CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten noted that where voters once sided with Israel by +48 points in October 2023, they now favor Palestinians by +1 point. It is, he said, “the first time ever” since polling began in the 1980s that Palestinians hold any advantage in US public sympathy. The shift is most dramatic among Democrats, who moved from supporting Israel by +26 points to favoring Palestinians by +46—a seventy-two–point swing in just two years. Even among Republicans, deep generational divides are emerging, with voters under 50 far less supportive of Israel than their elders.

What the Zionist architects of managed consent failed to understand is that this transformation is not transient. It is a generational and moral realignment. Younger Americans are examining Israeli actions with independent eyes, unburdened by the inculcated guilt narratives that shaped post-World War II Western politics. They belong to a global generation raised outside the rituals of the 5 o’clock news and Cold War. A generation for whom information is open source, and real-time videos bypassing the curated messaging of traditional media.

By blocking international reporters from entering Gaza, Israel inadvertently fueled the demand for alternative news. Social media became a critical independent source, a great equaliser, exposing atrocities that legacy networks once obfuscated or filtered out. It allowed millions to witness war crimes through the eyes of the victims, not corporations. It shattered the monopoly of manufactured consent that shielded Israel from accountability for seventy-seven years. The raw images of destroyed hospitals, neighbourhoods, universities, and starving children reshaped global consciousness. They exposed the real reasons why Israel murdered local journalists and was determined to keep the international press out of Gaza.

This reversal in public opinion helps explain the increasingly aggressive efforts by American Zionists to reassert control over both traditional and social media. As public sympathy for Palestinians grows, Israel and its allies are doubling down on narrative management, enlisting US media insiders to “shift the story” and reestablish their influence within the world’s leading news organizations.

For example, a new journalism fellowship founded in 2025 by Jacki and Jeff Karsh —heirs to a Zionist billionaire and self-described supporters of Israel—openly seeks to “shift the narrative” back in Israel’s favour. Promoted as “the world’s only journalism fellowship solely dedicated to Jewish topics,” it features pro-Israeli mentors from CNN and The New York Times, including Van Jones, Jodi Rudoren, and Sharon Otterman. Behind its claims of “integrity and independence,” the fellowship represents a broader Hasbara campaign to rebrand Israeli propaganda as journalism.

As Gaza’s reality reaches global audiences through unfiltered social media, public opinion is shifting faster than any managed narrative can contain. No amount of media engineering can conceal war crimes. Social media has torn down Israel’s false moral façade. No billionaire’s funding, no standing ovation for Benjamin Netanyahu in Congress, can erase what people have seen, questioned, and now refuse to accept: the lies that sustained occupation and Jewish apartheid for generations.

The political ripple effects of this awakening are beginning to unsettle Washington. What was once an untouchable bipartisan consensus on Israel now shows visible fissures, especially within the Democratic Party. Two years ago, I could not have imagined receiving text messages from candidates pledging to reject AIPAC funding. Even within the halls of Congress, where AIPAC once silenced dissent, a quiet rebellion is taking shape. Lawmakers who once hesitated to utter the word “Palestine” now invoke it as a measure of moral integrity. Questioning AIPAC and Israeli policy has become part of mainstream political discourse.

Ultimately, in this generational divide, the shift reflects the erosion of fear that once intimidated many. The fear of speaking out, of losing funding, or of being labeled antisemitic is fading. In its place rises conviction, where young Americans, armed with truth and moral clarity, are rejecting the long-standing conflation of Israel with Judaism, along with the myths and manufactured guilt that sustained it.

The question is no longer if US policy toward Israel will change, but when Washington’s politics will finally align with the public opinion.