The Hill News

The gap between Republican and Democratic support for Israel fell significantly in 2011 but self-identified Republicans still back Israel in higher numbers than Democrats.

A Gallup poll released Monday showed that 80 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians compared to 57 percent of Democrats who do the same. The gap decreased by 14 percentage points from 2010, when 85 percent of GOPers said they sympathize with Israelis compared to 48 percent of Democrats.

{mosads}Despite the drop, Republicans still support ! the Israelis over Palestinians in larger numbers than Democrats. When the sample is broken down by conservatives and liberals, 74 percent of the former group sided with Israelis compared to 49 percent for the latter.

Independent support is at 57 percent whereas moderate backing is at 62 percent.

The poll is surprising in some respects, considering that relations between the U.S. and Israel have had some rocky moments over the past year.

The U.S. was upset by an Israeli decision to begin construction on housing units in disputed East Jerusalem and the so-called "flotilla incident" in May 2010 also strained ties between Israel and governments in the rest of the Western world.

The survey also comes as the 2012 presidential campaign is beginning to heat up, during which the U.S.-Israel could become a top foreign policy issue.

Potential GOP candidates have taken subtle jabs at Obama over Israel with the hopes of appealing to their base, which strongly supports Israel.