For many years now, Israelis have been told that the biggest threat to the survival of the Jewish state is Iran’s quest to obtain nuclear weapons.
But another long-term trend could be eroding the foundations of Israel’s security: a generational decline in western voters’ support and sympathy for the Jewish state.
Public attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have seen dramatic swings following dramatic events. A Gallup poll conducted for Newsweek in 1982, just days after the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps of Beirut, registered a 17 per cent crash in Americans’ support for Israel.
