A Majority of Americans Views Israel Negatively in wake of Gaza Genocide

By Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laura Silver at the Pew Research Center reports that 53% of Americans now have a negative view of Israel, a stark deterioration from 42% in spring 2022 before the Israeli total war on Gaza.

Moreover, in just 3 years the percentage of Americans with very negative views of Israel has nearly doubled, from 10% to 19%. That is nearly one in five Americans.

The deterioration is bipartisan, though there are differences between the parties. Some 69% of Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party have an unfavorable view of Israel now, whereas 37% of Republicans do.

But among younger voters these differences are diminished. Half of Republicans under 50 years of age view Israel negatively, while 71% of Democrats in that age group have an unfavorable view of the country.

 Favorability ratings toward Israel of Americans, 1975-2025. ChatGPT

That age trend does not bode well for Israel. As the older Baby Boom generation shaped by memories of the Holocaust, the film Exodus, and the 1967 Six-Day War recedes, they are replaced by Gen X, Millennial and Gen Z Americans who have never known an Israel that was not geopolitically dominant in the Middle East and was not ruling over millions of oppressed and stateless Palestinians.

There are differences among religions and Christian denominations. Some 53% US Catholics view Israel negatively, perhaps influenced by Pope Francis’s denunciations of the Israeli war on Gaza civilians. So Catholic thinking on the matter exactly mirrors that of Americans in general.

About half of mainline white Protestants (Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc.) view Israel negatively.

Some 81% of American Muslims have a negative view of Israel.

And 69% of the religiously unaffiliated (about 15% of the population and about a third of people under 30) view Israel negatively.

On the other hand, the vast majority of white Evangelicals, some 20% of the country, have a positive view of Israel.

And of course American Jews similarly have a positive view of Israel. But Evangelical Christians and Jews are increasingly out of step with the rest of America on this issue.

With regard to the current Israeli leadership, however, there is more negativity across the board. 53% of Jewish Americans don’t trust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do the right thing. A similar proportion of Catholics take a dim view of Netanyahu, while 49% of mainstream white Protestants do not trust him to do the right thing.

Only 15% of Americans like Trump’s idea of America taking over the Gaza strip. 62% of Americans oppose this plan, and nearly half strongly oppose it.

Among the under-50 set, moreover, there is a significant drop in the number of Americans who even think the Israel-Gaza conflict is important to them or US interests. About 41% of Republicans under 50 don’t think it is, such that they are the most skeptical group in the poll. Only 51% of Democrats under 50 think the conflict is important to them and US interests. Older Americans tend to think the conflict is important to them and the US, but there is a substantial drop-off in younger voters.

Slightly more Americans think Trump is too pro-Israel than think he strikes the right balance.

The Israeli government has a whole cabinet ministry dedicated to propagandizing Americans to love Israel, give it money, and smear critics of any Israeli policy as antisemites. While it and its American allies, including the Evangelicals, have had enormous success on Capitol Hill and in the White House, their campaign is collapsing on main street across the country.

It is hard to know how consequential the collapse in support for Israel is. Public opinion means little in American day-to-day politics, except insofar as it affects elections. Even then, people vote on bread and butter issues and may not even know where their congressional representative stands on Israeli policies. Moreover, despite the collapse of support for Israel among the Democratic rank and file, congressional Democrats and the party leadership are so pro-Israel that they mostly are willing to overlook the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

I do think it is likely that the attempt heavy-handedly to impose pro-Israel views by the Trump administration and the use of this issue (misconstrued as “antisemitism”) will further cast Israel in a negative light for many Americans. But the current cut-off by Netanyahu of all food and other aid for Gaza while he shoots fish in a barrel has the potential for creating widespread hunger, the images of which will certainly driven a further wedge between most Americans and the far, far rightwing Israeli government