Studies Address Americans’ Views of Israeli Gov’t
Surveys also indicate that both Israelis and Americans have negative opinions of Netanyahu.
One after another, U.S. officials recently made their traditional late summer pilgrimages to Israel. First it was the delegation of a couple dozen Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives, headed by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries – a trip subsidized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They were followed not long after by New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his entourage. Both groups met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and various other officials or notables.
The long-time relationship between the two countries has often run hot and cold, depending on the leaders on both sides. But as a recent Pew Research Center survey indicates, Americans’ opinions about Israel differentiate between Israelis and their government.
Conducted in the spring of 2023, as well as one year earlier, the Pew surveys reveal that Americans generally have positive views of Israel and its people, but their views of Israel’s government and its prime minister are more mixed. The surveys this spring occurred as Israelis by the thousands protested repeatedly in the streets against the Netanyahu-led government for initiating legislation to weaken the authority of the country’s judicial system.
That means the survey was conducted prior to the Israeli legislature’s actual approval in July of the first step in what is called either a judicial reform, by its proponents, or judicial overhaul, by its critics.
The spring 2023 Pew survey reported that 26 percent of Americans had never even heard of Netanyahu, which is surprising on several levels. For one, Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history, having held the position for more than 15 years. Also, Netanyahu – who previously lived in the U.S. — once served as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations and is known as an eloquent English speaker. Notably, the lack of familiarity with Netanyahu was more prevalent among young adults.
Of those Americans who had heard of him, Pew reports, more saw him negatively than positively. About 42 percent of Americans said they had no confidence in him to do the right thing regarding world affairs, while 32 percent expressed confidence in him.
Not surprisingly, however, opinions of Netanyahu differed by political party and ideology. Republicans were far more likely (49 percent) than Democrats to have confidence him (17 percent).
In the same Pew survey this year, the research firm determined that Israelis had a similar unfavorable opinion of Netanyahu. More than half (52 percent) viewed him unfavorably compared to 47 percent who viewed him favorably. But opinions varied widely depending on political perspective.
“People who supported Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party or other parties in his governing coalition had nearly unanimously positive views of Netanyahu: 97 percent said they had a favorable view of him, including 64 percent who had a very favorable view. But among those who did not support the governing coalition, only seven percent had a favorable view of him, and 63 percent had a very unfavorable view,” Pew reported.
In its 2022 survey, Pew reported that Americans were more likely to have a favorable opinion of Israel’s people than of its government. In fact, two-thirds of Americans saw the Israeli people favorably. Fewer than half had a favorable view of Israel’s government.
At the time of that survey, Naftali Bennett was prime minister. In July of 2022, he was succeeded by his coalition partner, Yair Lapid. After November 2022 elections, Netanyahu returned to the role of prime minister.
Despite the perceived close relationship between the U.S. and Israel – underscored by the $3.8 billion the U.S. provides Israel in military support annually – the number of U.S. tourists to Israel each year has never reached one million. Still, the largest source of tourists visiting Israel are from the U.S. pre-COVID, in 2019, that number reached 960,000. Last year, after a strong rebound from 2020 and 2021, the number of tourists from the U.S. amounted to 858,500, according to Statista, a tourism website.
In 2020, a Pew study found that a majority of American Jews – 54 percent – had never visited Israel.
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