CHICAGO: The results of a survey published this week by the Pew Research Center in Washington reveal a significant increase in the proportions of people in the US, UK and other nations, mostly in the West, who hold unfavorable views on the Israeli state and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Researchers polled 32,000 people in 24 countries. Previous surveys had been carried out in 11 of them, 13 were being surveyed for the first time. Maria Smerkovich, a research associate with Pew, told Arab News on Wednesday that the results showed conclusively that public attitudes toward Israel and the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were increasingly negative, especially in America, traditionally one of the strongest advocates for Israel, and in the UK.
“The median is 62 percent have unfavorable views of the country of Israel, compared with a 29 percent median that have favorable views,” she said of the overall results.
“In about 20 of these countries, half of the population or more have unfavorable views of the country. We find that younger people and people on the left are more likely to have negative views of the country.
“In the US, views on Israel have turned more negative. The last time we asked about the favorability of Israel in the US was in 2022, before the current war (in Gaza). And at that time, a slight majority had favorable views of Israel. A smaller share had unfavorable views of Israel.
“Now (since the start of the conflict in Gaza) we’ve seen the tide turn, where just over half have unfavorable views of Israel and 45 percent have favorable views. So that’s a leap in terms of unfavorability; it’s a jump from 42 percent to 53 percent in just three years.”
She continued: “In about 10 other countries, the last time we asked about favorability of Israel was in 2013. And we have seen, in most of the countries, we have seen views turn more negative. For example in the UK in 2013, unfavorability was at 44 percent. Today, it’s at 61 percent. So that’s quite a jump.
“Israel’s unfavorability has increased in seven countries of the 10 where we have trends,” she said adding that the proportions of unfavorable views had remained “about the same since 2013” in France, Germany and Greece.
In addition to the “striking” increase in unfavorable views in the UK, Smerkovich said: “In Indonesia, it’s gone up from 71 percent to 80 percent. In Turkey, from 85 percent to 93 percent. In Nigeria, 25 percent to 32 percent.”
In the other 13 countries with no previous survey results, majorities also held strongly unfavorable views of both Israel and Netanyahu.
The survey reveals “majorities across all 24 countries show a lack of confidence that Netanyahu will ‘do the right thing,’” Smerkovich said.
Many people the US “have no confidence in Netanyahu,” she added, and there “has been an increase in the share that say they have no confidence in him … about a 10 percent jump, whereas the share that say they do have confidence in him has stayed fairly stable.”
This pattern is repeated in other countries, she said, where “we have seen an increase in no confidence in Netanyahu. But the share that say they do have confidence in him hasn’t really changed much in the US.”
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan “fact tank” that says it aims to inform the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts opinion polls, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research and does not adopt any positions on policies.
