Watching all of these pro-Hamas protests taking place on college campuses and in major cities, it might be easy to believe that support for Israel is on the decline in America. The supporters of terrorism unfortunately draw plenty of attention from the press and generate a lot of headlines. But are opinions like that really common today? Not according to the latest polling from Rasmussen Reports. They asked likely voters if they felt that Palestinians or Israel are primarily to blame for the current conflict and violence. They also asked respondents if they agreed with the notion that Israel has “no choice but to seek the complete eradication of Hamas in Gaza.” The results really weren’t all that close. A solid majority appear to be standing with Israel and feel that Hamas deserves what it has coming.

After the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, most U.S. voters blame Palestinians for the conflict, and agree with a Republican senator’s call for the “eradication” of Hamas.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that the Palestinians are mostly to blame for the conflict with Israel. Only 10% think Israel is mostly to blame, while 24% say both sides are about equally to blame for the conflict. Another 13% are not sure.

Before getting to the numbers, there is one important element in the wording of these poll questions that should be pointed out. Rasmussen does indeed speak specifically about “Hamas” in terms of the attack. But the question about assigning “blame” asked whether Israel or “the Palestinians” bore the most responsibility. That’s an important distinction. It’s easy enough to blame Hamas for virtually anything because they proudly confess to being murderous terrorists. But the conflict impacts all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. It’s a clash of cultures. (We can ignore for the moment that the majority of Palestinians there who are not actively fighting either support Hamas or are unwilling to speak out against them or overthrow them.) If we have to blame someone, it turns out to be Palestine.

So 53% of respondents believe that Palestinians are mostly to blame. That’s a much smaller majority than I would have hoped for or expected, but it’s still a majority. And only 10% take the side of AOC and claim that Israel is either “entirely” or even “mostly” to blame for the attacks they suffered. I suppose we can forgive the roughly one quarter of people who are still engaged in the “both sides” nonsense.

The other main question in the poll produced even more surprising results, at least to me. Voters were asked if Israel had no choice but to execute “the complete eradication” of Hamas from Gaza. “Eradication” is a much stronger word than “removal” or “defeat,” carrying obvious connotations. And yet people agreed with the statement by 66 to 19, a more than three-to-one margin. So there are clearly many people who may be uncomfortable with wiping out the Islamic militants, but still agree that it’s the only viable solution.

These numbers are comforting, in a way, because we’re seeing yet another example of a familiar pattern around the United States. The vast majority of people clearly stand with Israel and oppose Islamic terrorists. And yet a tiny but highly vocal minority takes to the streets and attracts all sorts of media attention, leading to the false impression that they are presenting some sort of viable, popular view. We see the same thing with transgenderism and advocacy for open borders.

But the difference in this case is that most (though not all) of the legacy media isn’t willing to go quite that far. The leftists marching with swastikas and Palestinian flags and chanting about “gassing the Jews” all around the world have been a bridge too far for even outlets like MSNBC. They are not drawing favorable or even neutral coverage. And governments have been responding positively as well. The Australian government recently issued an apology to the world for footage showing some of their people chanting “gas the Jews.” The government of France recently banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations. But all of these continued public displays are still highly disturbing, even if they are coming from a small minority.