Most people in 36 countries around the world have a negative view of Israel, with the Jewish state’s favourability rating declining rapidly, a major poll indicates.
Majorities in most of the three dozen countries surveyed by the Pew Research Centre also reported having little or no confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Pew, a non-partisan think tank based in the United States, conducted the research from February to May, with most interviews taking place after the US and Israel launched their joint military campaign on Iran on February 28.
Across the countries examined – which included close partners of Israel such as the United States and Hungary, and hostile states like Pakistan – a median of 67 per cent of adults had an unfavourable view of Israel while just 25 per cent had a favourable one.
Of the 24 countries where Pew asked the same question in 2025, only Greece saw a marginal improvement in its favourability of Israel.
In 13 of those countries, unfavourable opinions of Israel have become more common. In Argentina, for example, 46 per cent of respondents had an unfavourable view of Israel in 2025, whereas today that figure is 55 per cent.
The number of adults in the UK who said they hold an unfavourable view of Israel has jumped eight percentage points year on year, and in the US that increase stands at seven percentage points.
In the UK, Australia, Poland, Italy and Nigeria, the proportion of people who view Israel “very unfavourably” has increased by double digits.
Over one quarter (27 per cent) of Britons said they view Israel “somewhat unfavourably” this year, while 42 per cent held “very unfavourable” views of country. Just under one in five (18 per cent) of Brits had a “somewhat favourable” view of the Jewish state, and only seven per cent said they had a “very favourable” view. The remainder did not provide an answer.
“People in all European countries surveyed also give relatively negative assessments of Israel,” Pew stated. “In Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, around half of adults or more say they have a very unfavourable view of the country.”
Respondents’ views of Israel often tracked the left-right ideological divide, the researchers found, with those on the left having more negative views of Israel and those on the right a more positive view.
“This gap is widest in the US: 83 per cent of liberals and 37 per cent of conservatives have an unfavourable view of the country,” they wrote.
Pew surveyed 44,657 people across 36 countries from February 8 to May 13 as part of its global attitudes survey.
Asked about the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, majorities in most countries said that they were not confident that he would “do the right thing regarding world affairs.”
More than half of adults in countries including the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden stated they had “no confidence at all” in Netanyahu’s judgment.
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