Majority Of Republicans Say Israel Influences US Foreign Policy Too Much, Weeks Into Iran War
A slim majority of likely Republican voters believe Israel has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy weeks after the Iran war, according to a poll shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Just over half – 51% of Republicans – answered “yes” to the question “Does Israel have too much influence on US foreign policy?” compared to 43% who answered “no,” according to a Democracy Institute national survey of likely voters in the United States, released Monday. Meanwhile, 63% of all voters, including 74% of Democrats, agreed that Israel has too much influence.
The poll’s release comes just under a month after the United States and Israel jointly launched strikes against 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 is among the least popular conflicts in modern U.S. history at its time. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released the day after the strikes found that only 27% of American adults approved of them. (RELATED: Majority of GOP Voters Think Iran Was Not Imminent Threat, New Poll Finds)
The Trump administration’s decision to strike Iran was quickly rebuked by several supporters of the right-wing America First movement, including several current and former Republican lawmakers.
Before the war, national polls showed GOP voters largely showing support for Israel.
A Gallup poll released the day before the strikes found that 41 percent of Americans said they sympathized more with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, while 36 percent said the exact opposite. However, Republican respondents still showed 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 the Palestinians, according to a Gallup poll released February 27.
By party, Americans’ sympathy goes more to:
Republicans
• Palestinians: 13%
• Israelis: 70%Democrats
• Palestinians: 65%
• Israelis: 17%Independents
• Palestinians: 41%
• Israelis: 30%👉🏻 https://t.co/046ucHZwId https://t.co/95VxviOZ5q
– Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) February 27, 2026
Former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent resigned from his post on March 17, citing the war in Iran, which he said was sparked by 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 under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent, a two-time Republican congressional candidate, 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 disinformation campaign that completely undermined your America First agenda and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage war with Iran.”
However, Kent’s former boss, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, pushed back against her former deputy’s allegations.
“He said a lot of things in that letter. Ultimately, we 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 he has,” Gabbard told New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik during a March 19 House Intelligence Committee hearing.
The congresswoman then asked Gabbard if Kent’s accusing Israel of being responsible for the war had concerned her.
“Yes,” she replied.
The Democracy Institute poll surveyed 1,500 likely U.S. voters March 20-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
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