March 24, 2013

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. public strongly favors considering military action against Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a poll found.

The Pew Research Center poll conducted March 13-17 found that 64 percent of Americans agree that it is “more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons even if it means taking military action” as opposed to 24 percent who believe it is “more important to avoid military conflict even if Iran may develop nuclear weapons.”

The poll also found that while many more Americans continue to favor Israel over the Palestinians, the gap narrows among younger Americans.

Overall, 49 percent of respondents said they sympathized with Israel more than with the Palestinians, while 12 percent said the reverse.

Among age brackets the numbers broke down as follows: 36 percent favored Israel and 19 percent favored the Palestinians in the 18-29 age bracket; 47 percent favored Israel and 11 percent favored the Palestinians in the 30-49 age bracket; 59 percent favored Israel and 11 percent favored the Palestinians in the 50-64 age bracket; and among those 65 and over, sympathies with Israel ran 54 percent to 8 percent for the Palestinians.

The interviews of 1,501 adults were evenly divided between land line and cellular phones.

The overall margin of error was 2.9 percentage points.

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