Unraveling Americans' Selective Sympathies Toward Israelis and Palestinians

Abstract

Conflicts manifest on two fronts: the battlefield and global public opinion. This study explores how ordinary individuals form sympathies toward those involved in conflicts abroad, focusing on American public opinion about the Gaza conflict that began in 2023. Based on two conjoint experiments—one fielded the day after Israel’s 2023 ground invasion of Gaza and another conducted in May 2025—we find that Americans selectively pay attention to substantive aspects of the conflict and consistently evaluate their preferred side favorably. The belligerents’ religion emerges as the dominant factor shaping respondents’ sympathy, while respondents remain largely unmoved by the concerns emphasized by the opposing side. We find minimal differences across respondents’ partisanship and religion, though racial divides in conflict perception persist. Sympathy toward one group is also associated with resentment toward the other group. Consequently, while people profess their sympathy is rooted in universal sentiments about suffering, its expression is filtered through prior beliefs and motivated reasoning. This finding underscores the psychological and political challenges that pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian partisans face in understanding each other’s perspectives.