Majority Of Republicans Say Israel Influences US Foreign Policy Too Much, Weeks Into Iran War

A bare majority of likely Republican voters say Israel has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy weeks into the Iran War, a poll shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation shows.

Just over half — 51% of Republicans — answered “yes” when asked “Does Israel have too much influence over American foreign policy?” compared to 43% who said “no,” according to a Democracy Institute national survey of U.S. likely voters released Monday. Meanwhile, 63% of all voters, including 74% of Democrats, agreed that Israel has too much influence.

The poll’s release came just under a month after the U.S. and Israel jointly launched strikes on Iran killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other officials of the Islamist regime.

The ongoing war in Iran has killed at least 13 U.S. service members and ranks among one of the least popular conflicts in modern U.S. history at its relative point in time. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released the day after the strikes found that only 27% of U.S. adults approved of them.

The Trump administration’s decision to strike Iran received swift rebukes from several advocates of the right-wing America First movement, including multiple current and former Republican lawmakers.

Prior to the war, national polls showed that GOP voters widely demonstrated support for Israel.

A Gallup poll released the day before the strikes found that a 41% plurality of Americans said they sympathized with Palestinians more than Israelis, 36% said the precise opposite. However, Republican respondents still demonstrated a strong preference for the Jewish majority country, with 70% saying they sympathized more with Israelis and only 13% saying they sympathized more with Palestinians.

Meanwhile, a majority (65%) of Democrats and a plurality (40%) of independents indicated they sympathized more with Palestinians, according to the Gallup poll released Feb. 27.

Former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent resigned from his position on March 17 citing the Iran War, which he argued was started due to pressure from Israel and its lobby in the United States.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent, a two-time Republican candidate for Congress, wrote in his resignation letter.

He also alleged that early in the second Trump administration, “high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.”

However, Kent’s former boss, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard pushed back on her one-time deputy’s allegations.

“He said a lot of things in that letter. Ultimately, we have provided the president with the intelligence assessments, and the president is elected by the American people and makes his own decisions based on the information that’s available to him,” Gabbard told Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik during a March 19 House Intelligence Committee hearing.

The congresswoman then asked Gabbard if Kent blaming Israel for the war had concerned her.

“Yes,” she answered.

The Democracy Institute poll surveyed 1,500 likely U.S. voters from March 20-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.