Recent headlines would have you believe Israel is losing ground in the domestic narrative war with Hamas. New polls indicate that the high level of support Israel enjoyed after the October 7 attacks has slowly eroded as military action in Gaza drags on and a humanitarian crisis emerges.

But digging beneath the headlines reveals a lot of good news for Israel’s long-term prospects in shoring up its support among the American people, and especially among critical policy, political and military leaders.

The polls in question come from NPR and Reuters. The former found that 38 percent believed Israel’s retaliation against Hamas had gone too far, an increase of 12 percentage points from October. The Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll found that only 32 percent of respondents agreed that “the U.S. should support Israel,” a 9-point decrease from October. But Reuters also found that only 4 percent of respondents believed that the United States should support Hamas instead of Israel — unchanged since last month.

This indicates that Israel has a high floor compared to a low Hamas ceiling. And the longer the war goes on, the more propaganda weapons Hamas keeps giving Israel to win the long game of public support.

[I certainly hope that’s true, but if so, the Biden administration seems slow to grasp it. They keep pandering to the pro-Hamas splinter of their base. Of course, we have rarely credited them with any kind of political competence, so … — Ed]