Transcript:
Ahead of Israel’s national elections, NPR’s Morning Edition featured an interview with former Biden Administration deputy national security adviser Jon Finer. But how much clarity did host Leila Fadel and her guest provide their audience?
Jon Finer: There are recent polls that show that more than 60% of Americans now hold an unfavorable opinion of Israel.
Laila Fadel: …Like you said, more than 60% of US voters, even in a recent survey, said they just want to stop military aid to Israel over what it’s doing in Gaza and in its wars.
No, that’s not what Finer said, and it’s not supported by evidence.
Recent polling from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in October 2026 found that 35% wanted to stop military aid to Israel.
Another poll by the Washington Post in the summer of 2026 found that 29% wanted to end military support to Israel.
An outdated Quinnipiac poll from August 2025 comes closer to supporting Fadel’s claim, but not quite. The poll, conducted 22 months into the war and before Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, asked whether respondents opposed or supported the US “sending more military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war with Hamas.” That is: 60% opposed sending more military aid, at a specific time and for a specific purpose.
Finally, a Yale Youth Poll conducted several months after the Quinnipiac one found only 23% supported stopping all military aid to Israel.
Fadel: There will be people listening to you right now as we discuss the future of the US-Israeli relationship who will say, “The Biden Administration continued supplying Israel bombs, and for that reason is responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, men, women, and children, as well as Israel’s bombings of hospitals, of schools in Gaza, of entire buildings.” How much blame does the administration that you served in bear for Israel’s actions of the last few years?
The NPR host’s question completely erases Hamas from the conflict it started.
She acknowledged neither that tens of thousands of terrorists were among those killed, nor the remarkably low combatant-to-civilian fatality ratio during the war.
It’s also failing to account for Hamas’ well-known and widely documented strategy of employing human shields, building tunnels underneath civilian infrastructure, and using schools and hospitals for military operations.
NPR’s audience deserves to hear the full story.