2 Million Muslims in America Support Hamas

And as many as 1 million may support Al Qaeda and ISIS

In 2024, 37% or 1 in 3 Muslims in America, told a Pew survey that they have a positive view of Hamas. In a new Pew survey, 44% or nearly 1 in 2 Muslims in the US now support Hamas.

50% support the PLO or the ‘Palestinian Authority’ which, despite the backing of some administrations, is also a terrorist organization and elements of it took part in the Oct 7 attacks.

The nearly 20% increase is largely unacknowledged in a poll mainly focused on bashing Israel.

But it is significant because we have been told that a majority of Muslims oppose terrorism, usually without any evidence, even while surveys showing support for terrorism are overlooked.

If these numbers are representative, that means some 2 million Muslims in America support a Muslim Brotherhood Islamic terrorist organization that is financed and backed by Iran.

There is every reason to think that the numbers are even worse because the previous Pew survey also found that half of Muslims in America (49%) believed Hamas has “valid” reasons for attacking Israel and 1 in 5 Muslims in America (21%) were willing to admit they supported the Oct 7 massacres. Pew doesn’t appear to have asked Muslims any similar questions this time but these are ‘stealth’ indicators of support for Hamas by endorsing its tactics and its agenda.

And assuming that Muslim support for Hamas tactics increased with their support for Hamas, that could translate into 58% approval for Hamas motives and 24% support for the attacks.

Other data polling Muslim support for Hamas in Western nations comes from a Cygnal poll of Muslims in the U.S. days after the Oct 7 attacks which found that 38.6% of Muslims had a positive response to the leader of Hamas and 42% believed Hamas was justified in carrying out the Oct 7 attacks. In the UK, a 2024 survey found that 46% of Muslims sympathized with Hamas, as did 56% of younger Muslims. The Pew survey did not break down Muslim terror support by age or the numbers would likely have been even worse.

Either way the clear trend is that overt Muslim support for Islamic terrorism is growing. It’s only a question of how much it’s growing. This is likely a reflection of underlying sentiments that are becoming more socially acceptable and allowing Muslims to be more open about Hamas.

Among Democrats, support for Hamas has slowly ticked up 12% in 2024 to 14% now, and among 18-29 Democrats, it’s up to 16%. The non-Muslim American demographic with the highest rate of support for Hamas are black people at 17% but even that’s limited.

While Democrats like to blame Netanyahu and Israel’s campaign against Hamas for its unfavorable ratings, the aforementioned Cygnal poll conducted directly after the Oct 7 attacks showed 15% favorability for the leader of Hamas among Democrats and 19% favorability among progressives. Of those, 13% of self-identified progressives rated the Hamas leader as ‘very favorable’ making it clear that the tilt towards Hamas on the Left was either immediate or a pre-existing political condition.

The Left has succeeded in mainstreaming opposition to Israel, among their other ideological fringe ideas among Democrats, but have yet to successfully convince them to support Hamas.

Large numbers of Americans are not becoming more supportive of Hamas, but campus rallies, pop culture and the social media bubble are making it more socially acceptable for Muslims in America to ‘come out of the closet’. The growing Muslim support for Hamas in America is not a reflection of a larger demographic trend that is significantly affecting non-Muslim Americans.

The media and social media campaign against Israel has succeeded in turning Democrats, especially young Democrats, against Israel, but, despite the spectacle on college campuses, it hasn’t produced much in the way of support for Islamic terrorists.

A majority of Democrats have an unfavorable view of the Israeli people now, down to 43%, while Republican positive feelings towards Israel dropped from 76% to 65% since Oct 7 (likely in part a reflection of a Qatari influence campaign focusing on recruiting ‘right’ social media influencers) and while a majority of Democrats (67%) now have a positive view of the ‘Palestinian people’ compared to 33% of Republicans, there’s no great wave of political support. Even among Democrats, approval for the PLO / Palestinian Authority is only at 33% and among Republicans, it’s at 14%. Only among young Democrats, is there much support for the PLO (43%) indicating that, like BLM or ‘Transgenderism’, ‘Palestinians’ have joined the ranks of victim groups, but this hasn’t meaningfully translated into direct support for Islamic terror groups (as opposed to the indirect ‘useful idiot’ support of propping up the ‘Palestinian’ myth) even among Democrats.

Muslim support for Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups is an ‘exceptional’ outlier.

And a revealing one.

Beyond Israel, the real question remains how many Muslims in America would be willing to support Islamic terrorism here or abroad. And there’s been little polling on that. For example, Hezbollah remains widely popular in the enclave of Dearborn, but no polling has been conducted. However key political figures in Dearborn have defended the terror group.

Gov. Whitmer’s old family friend, Abed Hammoud, a Lebanese immigrant and former U.S. attorney who once ran for mayor in Dearborn, and whose son Mustapha is a city councilman, had had headed the Congress of Arab American Organizations, had complained to the media that a government crackdown on Hezbollah was “smearing the whole community”.

“Now people are scared to even say `I want Hezbollah to defend Lebanon,’”

Osama Siblani, the publisher of Arab American News, who had also headed the Congress of Arab American Organizations, had told the Washington Post, “Mr. Bush believes Hezbollah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions are terrorists, but we believe they are freedom fighters.”

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud had defended naming a street after Siblani, warning a Christian resident to leave the city, and state and local officials, including Gov. Whitmer, had sent messages of praise for Osama to celebrate the street naming for a Hezbollah fan.

It would be interesting to poll and see how many Muslims in America support Hezbollah.

But until then, we may have to use the Hamas approval ratings as a proxy for the general support for Islamic terrorism by Muslims in America.

The Cygnal poll had asked Muslims in the U.S. whether they thought Hamas was as bad, worse or the same as ISIS. 19% of Muslims said Hamas was not as bad as ISIS. 31% said Hamas was worse than ISIS. 50% said they were about the same. Similarly, 18% ranked Hamas above Al Qaeda, while 53% ranked Hamas as equivalent to Al Qaeda.

Since we now know that Hamas support is up to 44% among Muslim settler-colonists in America, that implies that at least 20% of them also support Al Qaeda and ISIS.

This would track with UK surveys which found that 1 in 4 Muslims supported the Al Qaeda 7/7 bombings, which were recently commemorated, and the Charlie Hebdo massacres. It would stand to reason that Muslim settler colonists in the U.S. would have similar terror support rates.

That’s nearly 1 million Muslims who may support Al Qaeda or ISIS in America.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center’s Front Page Magazine.

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Read my book ‘Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left’ to discover the true origins of the American Left.