Pro-Palestine protests outnumber pro-Israel demonstrations in Utah
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Utah outnumber pro-Israeli protests, a trend seen across multiple U.S. cities, according to a tracker from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
By the numbers: ACLED logged eight protests in the Beehive State supporting Palestine and five that backed Israel between Oct. 7 and Dec. 1.
Driving the news: Cities across the U.S. have seen hundreds of protests since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, Axios' Rahul Mukherjee and Shoshana Gordon report.
The big picture: As Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip have ramped up and the death toll has increased, a growing proportion of the demonstrations have been in support of Palestinians.
- Opinion polling shows that younger Americans in particular have grown more sympathetic to Palestinians since the start of the conflict.
- More than 16,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its military campaign, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza. Around 1,200 people were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel.
Details: ACLED defines protests as three or more participants in a non-violent demonstration. Protests are added to the dataset if they are reported from a list of news and NGO reports. ACLED groups the demonstrations into three categories.
- Protests are categorized as pro-Israel when the messaging supports Israeli civilians targeted by Hamas, backs the Israeli government's operations in Gaza, or condemns the Hamas attack.
- Protests are categorized as pro-Palestinian when the messaging supports the Palestinian government and its civilians or condemns the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and settlements in the West Bank.
- Neutral protests call for peace and don't mention support or condemnation of either party to the conflict.
The trend: Initially after the Oct. 7 attack, most of the demonstrations in the U.S. were in solidarity with Israel. Within a week, with the Israeli military response underway, pro-Palestinian protests began to exceed pro-Israeli demonstrations, according to the data.
- Nonetheless, nearly half of all pro-Israel protests worldwide included in ACLED's tracker have taken place in the U.S., far more than in any other country.
Go deeper: Charting the weapons the U.S. has provided Israel