60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply since 2022, survey shows
The survey found that 56% of U.S. Jews have little or no confidence in Benjamin Netanyahu
Protesters demonstrate outside the headquarters of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., March 13, 2024. Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images
(JTA) — Six in 10 Americans say they have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel, up 20 points since 2022, according to a new Pew Research Center survey released this week.
About half of them say they have a “very unfavorable” view of Israel, a proportion that has tripled in the last four years.
The survey of 3,500 U.S. adults conducted late last month, weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, offers the latest signal that anti-Israel sentiment is surging among Americans. Multiple previous polls have shown that Americans newly sympathize more often with the Palestinians over the Israelis.
The poll results come as politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing for Israel to receive less or no U.S. aid, and as the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC has become a punching bag especially among Democrats.
The latest poll replicated the partisan divide widely detected in polling, with about 80% of Democrats saying they have an unfavorable view of Israel, compared to 40% of Republicans. Nearly half of Democrats under age 50 said they have a “very unfavorable” view of Israel.
While Republicans continue to hold an overall favorable view of Israel, they are split on their assessment of its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Pew survey, which had a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points. As many have little or no confidence in him as have a lot or some confidence — though among Republicans under 50, only 30% said they had any confidence in him.
The poll is the second released this week to detect opposition to the Israeli government among Jewish Americans specifically. The Pew survey found that 56% of U.S. Jews have little or no confidence in Netanyahu when it comes to world affairs. A smaller survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that 63% of respondents described themselves as both “pro-Israel” and critical of Israeli government policies.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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