Poll: US support for two-state solution lowest in 20 years
Just 39% of respondents in Washington Post survey say they back Palestinian statehood, while 36% say they oppose it.
American support for a two-state solution has reached its lowest point in two decades, with just 39 percent of Americans backing the plan, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The number of respondents who opposed the creation of a Palestinian state is almost as high as those who back it, the poll found, with 36 percent of those questioned saying they were against such a move.
Nonetheless, the two-state solution still has the backing of the international community, and even the rightist Israeli leadership is loath to reject it out of hand.
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Benjamin Netanyahu, in the run-up to recent Knesset elections, publicly declared that there would not be a Palestinian state for as long as he was prime minister.
He backtracked immediately after the elections, denying that he had contradicted his major policy speech from 2009, and explaining that he believed conditions were not currently ripe for a Palestinian state.
The results of the poll were published as the International Criminal Court at The Hague officially welcomed the State of Palestine as a member, three months after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied to join dozens of international institutions following the collapse of the latest round of US-brokered peace talks.
Meanwhile, a Pew poll released Monday showed that 65 percent of Americans have sympathy for Israel, while just 46 percent said they were sympathetic toward the Palestinians.
According to the poll, 31% of Americans have “a lot” of sympathy for Israel, while another 34% have "some" sympathy. One noteworthy statistic is that respondents expressing no sympathy at all for Israel has gone up to 18 percent from 12 percent in August of last year.
