Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Most Americans Like Israelis But Not Netanyahu’s Government: Poll

(JTA) — Republicans and Democrats may hold widely disparate views of Israel’s government, a new survey found, but both have positive vibes about Israelis.

The Pew Research Center study, released Wednesday, found that while 61 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of Israel’s government — led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party — that number is only 26 percent for Democrats.

Asked about views of Israeli people, most respondents regardless of party affiliation held positive views — 77 percent of those identifying as or leaning Republican and 57 percent of those identifying as or leaning Democrat.

Older people were more likely to have a positive view of the Netanyahu government: 57 percent of respondents 65 and older held a positive view, the only age group in which a majority did so. The proportion decreased with each age group, with 27 percent of those aged 18-29 having a positive view.

As for views of the Palestinian government, a majority of respondents identifying with both parties held negative views — 81 percent for Republicans and 65 percent for Democrats. Asked about their opinions on the Palestinian people, 32 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of Democrats said they viewed them favorably.

The survey, which was conducted April 1-15, had 10,523 respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percent.

In past years, Pew has asked respondents whether they sympathized more with Israel or the Palestinians. This year, the research center decided to reframe the question to reflect the fact that many respondents favored both sides or neither.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.