Poll: Majority of young Americans oppose arms sales to ‘israel’

The opinion poll was conducted and published by the Eurasia Group Foundation (EGF), which interviewed 2,002 American adults from September 2 to 8 on the US role in the world’s conflicts and a number of different foreign policy views.

The findings of the poll showed that 53 percent of those respondents aged between 18 and 29 years old disagreed with the continuation of arms sales to Israel, which is the largest recipient of US military aid, receiving an annual $4bn from Washington for military purposes.

“Respondents who were against selling arms to Israel said that it violates human rights through its enduring occupation of Palestine,” said Zuri Linetsky, a research fellow at EGF.

The annual $4bn aid has largely bipartisan support in the US Congress, however, in recent years several prominent politicians have called for the aid to be restricted due to Israeli rights abuses against Palestinians.

The EGF’s survey was congruous with other polling in recent years that more Americans, and particularly younger Americans, are harboring increasingly critical views of Israel.

A Pew Research poll earlier this year found 61 percent of younger Americans – respondents under 30 years of age – had favorable views of the Palestinian people.

A month prior to Pew’s poll, a survey released by the University of Maryland found less than one percent of respondents viewed Israel as one of Washington’s top two allies.

Israeli forces have been recently conducting near-nightly raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.

More than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied territories since the start of the year, including 51 in the besieged Gaza Strip during Israel’s three-day assault in August.

More than 30 of those killed were either from Jenin or were killed in the Jenin region.

The Israeli regime has also recently ramped up incursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds, with Hamas warning that such infringements upon the holy site could lead to “explosions” in the region.

A general strike has been called across the West Bank in commemoration of those martyred and in protest against the latest Israeli aggression.

Most Americans oppose arms sale to Saudi Arabia

The EGF’s poll also found that nearly 70 percent of respondents disagree with the continuation of US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, with nearly 35 percent strongly in opposition to such arms sales.

The results came as the administration of US President Joe Biden proceeds with the provision of arms to countries in the Middle East with questionable rights records, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

In August, Biden approved a massive $5bn weapons sale to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both involved in a years-long devastating war against impoverished Yemen.

Saudi Arabia launched the destructive war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.