The U.S. Public Opinion on Gaza and Policy Implications: An Empirical Analysis

On February 4, 2025, U.S. President Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza shocked the world. This study aims to interpret the policy shift by analyzing evolving U.S. public opinion on Gaza. Using Google Trends data from September 2018 to March 2025, it constructs innovative time series variables to capture the U.S. public agenda. The analysis reveals a structural shift in public sentiment beginning in October 2023. Prior to that, opinion was largely reactive to isolated extreme events. Afterward, discourse was driven by polarized narratives: (far)-left slogans such as “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea,” and far-right apocalyptic themes, proxied by interest in Jesus’ Second Coming. A parallel humanitarian layer within pro-Israel attention – captured by searches for “Israel hostages” – is also consistently significant and positively associated with the Gaza narrative. By contrast, legal–humanitarian framing (“Gaza Genocide”) and mainstream solidarity slogans (“Stand with Israel”) are generally less significant or less stable. Overall, extreme framings dominate, but hostage-related humanitarian concerns remain an important driver of attention, with implications for U.S. policy agenda. Future research should examine whether other Trump–Vance policies exhibit similar patterns.