Talking about an issue is productive if you need to bring awareness to it. There is nobody on the planet who isn't aware that something is happening in Israel and Gaza. And when an issue is this divisive, calling attention to it mobilises both sides. (See polling following the protests at Columbia, for example. Awareness went up. But net support increased more for Israel than Palestine because people just defaulted to their priors.)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-to...
I never argued otherwise. I'm saying look at the polling immediately after the protests.
Media reporting of atrocities drives down favourability for Israel. Media reporting of the protests drives down favourability for Palestine. It's why, despite favourability for Israel monotonically declining since 2023, its net favourability vis-a-vis Palestine blipped up in '24.
What's not? Literally look at the Gallup poll you cited [1] to see Palestinian favourability dip in 2024.
I'll note that part of it is the media's fascination with the pro-Hamas minority at pro-Palestinian protests. Organisers are getting a little better at screening those folks out.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-to...
Of course there is [1][2]. (You see similar effects from e.g. bridge blocking in the broader protest literature.)
And again, what do you think happened in 2024 that caused support for Palestine per your source to drop?
> media is staunchly Zionist
The population has been broadly pro-Israel until very recently. The media market is, in the end, a market.
[1] https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/49311-opinion-on-...
[2] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/05/03/p...
Also this poll doesn’t back up what you are saying. These protests are as much anti-israel as they are pro-palestine, and support for Israel has been consistently dwindling. The protests continued throughout 2024 especially leading up to the November election, yet in 2025 support for Palestine was in all time high. Most likely the support dropped in 2024 because the horrors of the 2023 oct 7 terrorist attacks were still in fresh memory, so support for Palestine, which had been steadily increasing, took a momentary dip, but quickly readjusted at an increasing rate as the accusations of the Gaza genocide became ever harder to deny.
I’m citing the poll the commenter I’m responding to originally cited. Given they trust that poll, it made sense to respond to it. I was also making a point about a dip in 2024; the newer poll doesn’t update those data.
> support for Israel has been consistently dwindling
Literally what I’ve been arguing [1].
Support for Israel is monotonically decreasing. When protests are covered, support for Palestine dips.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-ameri...