Pew Poll: Who's To Blame? Israel Or Hamas

Pew Poll: Younger Americans Blame Israel Over Hamas For Current Conflict

Time for some statistics on the hottest hot-button issue: The conflict between Israel and Hamas. More specifically, what we here in America think about the conflict, and who we believe is more responsible for the violence. The Pew Research Center conducted a poll, and the results may surprise you (depending on who you are).

Overall, among all ages, races and genders polled, blame for the violence is placed on Hamas, who received 40% of the votes as compared to Israel’s 19%. Things get more interesting as you delve into the demographics. The older the person polled, the more likely they were to blame Hamas, starting as low as 21% in the 18-29 demo and climbing to 53% for those 65 and over. The 18-29 group actually places more blame on Israel, with 28% of the votes.

Education appeared to have no effect, with college grads, those with some college and those with high school diplomas or less placing more blame on Hamas’ shoulders. White people tended to blame Hamas, while black respondents were split and Hispanic respondents placed the blame on Israel, at a rate of 35% to 20%.

Politically, things don’t shake down quite the way you expect. While Republicans (both mainline and conservative) say Hamas is squarely to blame (60% and 70%, respectively), Democrats were more conflicted. In fact, self-identified liberal democrats were split in twain, 30% of them assigning blame to both Hamas and Israel.

It just goes to show that whenever there’s conflict in the world, there’s sure to be conflicting opinions here at home.