Three months of war between Israel and Hamas have deeply divided Californians, with stark divisions between the state's older and younger voters, according to a new state poll.
Voters under 30 are much more likely to sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis, while those over 65 side with Israel, according to the new poll by the Institute of Government Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
Between 55% and 18%, voters under 30 say Israel should accept a ceasefire even if it meant Hamas remains a force in Gaza.
Among voters over 65, the opinion is almost the opposite: between 52% and 32%, those voters believe that Israel should continue fighting until Hamas is no longer viable. According to the survey, 27 percent of younger voters and 16 percent of those over 65 had no opinion.
Poll finds equally stark divisions along ideological lines: The state's most liberal voters overwhelmingly say Israel is using too much military force in the war, while conservative voters say its use of force has been either right or too little. .
Jen Julian, a 26-year-old progressive voter who lives in Los Angeles, is among those who feel the war has been too costly. The death toll among Palestinians, which Gaza health authorities put at more than 23,000, was “too high a human cost,” she said in an interview.
Israel launched its airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages.
“I understand that Israel was attacked and I felt I needed to respond to that, but this is too much for too long,” he said.
Joey Johnson, a 68-year-old conservative from Redding, took a different view.
“This is like Israel's 9/11,” Johnson said. “If the United States were attacked like Israel was by terrorists, we would also want to do everything we can to prevent it from happening again. But of course it is tragic that innocent people are dying in Gaza.”
The two-state solution remains dominant
While opinions are sharply divided on the current war, the poll shows greater agreement among California voters on the future of the conflict.
The separate, independent states of Israel and Palestine that divide the territory remain the most favored option for all but the most conservative voters.
That so-called two-state solution has been official US policy for decades and at various times in the past, at least nominally accepted as a goal by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing power in the West Bank.
However, right-wing Israelis, who have a strong influence on the current government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, oppose an independent Palestinian state. Meanwhile, Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups reject Israel's continued existence.
Among California voters, the two-state solution is supported by a large majority of those who have an opinion: 47% prefer two states, while 25% have no opinion and the rest are divided between other options.
Two states is what Rabbi Jonathan Klein hopes.
As the leader of Temple Beth El in Bakersfield and a self-described “lifelong liberal Zionist,” Klein, 55, said he has closely followed the news coming out of Israel and Gaza.
“My community is pretty universally supportive of Israel's efforts to combat what they consider an existential threat,” Klein said.
“But I recognize that just because Jews have a historical connection to the area doesn't mean other people don't. Do I think coexistence is possible? I hope so, but I don't know at this point.”
The poll finds significantly less support for an option advocated by some on the left: a unified binational state. One in eight voters said they would like to see a single state that was neither Jewish nor Palestinian. Support comes primarily from the left: just under 1 in 5 of the state's liberals back him.
There is very little support for Hamas' goal of creating an Arab state that controls all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. While that idea has been supported by protesters in some recent protests, only 3% of the state's voters support it. Support increases to 7% among those under 30 and 8% of those who identify as strongly liberal.
“Israel is an illegitimate state,” said Reza Nekumanesh, a 47-year-old Iranian American who lives in Fresno. “I don't think that means that any particular group of people doesn't have the right to live and exist there in peace, equity and justice,” Nekumanesh said. “But I don't think any state should be founded and centered on an ethnic or religious identity.”
At the other end of the ideological spectrum, 11% of the state's voters support a single Israeli state that controls all territory – the goal of the Israeli right.
However, Netanyahu and his allies have strong support within Republican ranks, with support for Israeli control over the entire region rising to 31% among the state's Republican voters and 43% of those who identify as strongly conservative. .
Divided sympathies
The poll finds that 30% of California voters say they sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians in the current conflict and a similar share, 28%, sympathize with both sides equally.
Mordecai Miller, a 74-year-old Redwood City resident, said he felt pain on both sides, but felt closer to the plight of Israelis after Oct. 7.
“None of this war would have happened if Hamas had not intentionally attacked Israel and wanted to eradicate it,” Miller said. “Israel has been forced to retaliate.”
A slightly smaller proportion, 24%, say they sympathize more with the Palestinians.
That includes Rami Sultan, a Palestinian American in Santa Clara who has family in Gaza.
The 41-year-old tech worker said he was outraged by what he described as “genocide.”
“This is not a war against Hamas at all. “This is a clear war against the Palestinian people,” Sultan said.
Sympathies vary dramatically by age and ideology.
Among voters under 30, for example, 44% say they sympathize more with Palestinians, while only 14% say they sympathize more with Israelis and 21% with both equally.
Among those over 65, 46% sympathize more with Israelis, 13% with Palestinians and 32% with both equally.
Biden caught in the middle
Divided opinion on the war has left President Biden vulnerable to criticism from both the left and the right.
Overall, 55% of the state's voters disapprove of Biden's response, while 33% approve.
But 64% of voters who describe themselves as strongly liberal disapprove of Biden's response to the conflict, as do 67% of those who identify as strongly conservative.
The stark age divide is a major factor: 69% of voters under 30 and 65% of those 30 to 39 disapprove of the way Biden has handled the conflict.
Melissa Brown, a 40-year-old conservative voter in San Diego, said Biden “was very firm on Israel at the beginning, as he should have been.”
“He is still strong, but he can be seen bowing to pressure from the left, sending messages that Israel needs to tone down its self-defense,” he said. “I disagree.”
Concern over anti-Semitism and Islamophobia
Despite their differences over the war and the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a large majority of California voters of all parties share concerns about an increase in anti-Jewish or anti-Arab violence or incidents of hate.
When asked about anti-Semitic incidents, 80% of California voters said they were worried about them, 12% were not worried. Similarly, 75% said they were worried about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim incidents, compared to 17% who were not worried.
The survey found very little division along ideological or partisan lines in concern about anti-Semitism, but a notable partisan difference regarding anti-Muslim incidents.
Among Democrats, the percentage of those who expressed concern about anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred was about the same. Among Republicans, 81% said they were concerned about anti-Semitism, while 13% were not. But 60% were concerned about anti-Muslim hate, compared to 31% who were not.
The Berkeley IGS poll surveyed 8,199 registered California voters. It was held online in English and Spanish from January 4-8.
Results were weighted to match census and voter registration benchmarks, so margin of error estimates may be imprecise; however, the results have an estimated margin of error of 1.5 percentage points in either direction..
