Bibi Favorability at 34% With Americans

By JTA July 31, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is viewed favorably by 35% of Americans, compared to 23% unfavorable, a new Gallup poll revealed.

Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to view Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favorably, and President Obama’s Jewish support remains steady, according to polling by Gallup.

Fifty percent of Republicans view Netanyahu favorably, according to the poll published last week by Gallup, while 25 percent of Democrats and 32 percent of Independents have a favorable view. Only 16 percent of Republicans view Netanyahu unfavorably, as opposed to 23 percent of Independents and 31 percent of Democrats.

Overall, the poll showed the Israeli leader with a favorability rating of 35 percent to 23 percent unfavorable, with 41 percent having no opinion.

The poll, conducted July 9-12 over the phone with 1,014 adults and timed ahead of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s Israel visit last weekend, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points for its overall results and 6 percentage points for its subsets.

Separate Gallup tracking polls in June showed Jewish support for Obama remaining steady at 68 percent to 25 percent, within the statistical margin of error of the 64-29 showing in April and May.

The tracking polls reached 576 Jewish registered voters and have a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Separately, an Israel Project poll released Tuesday found that eight in 10 Americans see Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program as a threat to the United States and its allies, with 39 percent seeing it as a “very big” threat and 41 percent seeing it as s a moderate threat.

The poll of 800 likely voters, by Public Opinion Strategies on July 18 and 19, found that the same percentage – 80 – believe Iran is building nuclear weapons, despite its denials.

Seventy-eight percent of voters supported tough sanctions against Iran.

The margin of error was 3.46 percentage points.

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