US Republicans like Netanyahu; Democrats, not so much
There is both good and bad news for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Gallup poll of American attitudes to six foreign leaders published on Tuesday.
The good news is that among Republicans, 64% view Netanyahu favorably, putting him at the top of the list that includes the leaders of Britain, Canada, Germany, Russia and North Korea.
The bad news is that only 17% of the Democrats view him favorably, putting him well behind Britain’s Theresa May, Canada’s Justin Trudeau and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
This poll, conducted August 1-12 among 1,024 adults – with a +/- 4% margin of error – continues a trend evident in a series of surveys from various polling agencies showing a deep divide among Democrats and Republicans toward Israel.
For instance, a Pew poll from January indicated that the partisan divide on Israel is now wider than any time since 1978, with 79% of Republicans saying they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, while the number of Democrats more sympathetic to Israel stood at just 27%.
A similar Gallup poll two months later also found a large gap among the parties, but less pronounced than the Pew poll. This poll found that 87% of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, with the number among Democrats standing at only 49%.
According to the Gallup favorability poll, Netanyahu has an overall favorability rating of 37%, compared to 48% for Trudeau, 46% for May, and 39% for Merkel. Rounding out the list were Russian President Vladimir Putin, with 13%, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, with 6%
Twenty nine percent of the respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Netanyahu, more than Merkel (25%), Trudeau (24%) and May (21%), but far less than Putin (76%) or Kim (84%).
US President Donald Trump’s current favorability rate in the US stands, according to a recent average of a number of different polls, at 42%. Trump’s favorability rate among Israeli Jews, according to a University of Maryland poll in May following the US embassy move to Jerusalem, stood at 59%, with only 19% having an unfavorable opinion of him.
According to Gallup, Netanyahu’s current 37% favorable rating is similar to what it has been since he took office in 2009, when it stood at 35%. Netanyahu’s highest number came in 1998 after the signing of the Wye River Memorandum, when 48% of Americans viewed him favorably, and his lowest favorability number was recorded in 1997, when only 23% held him in a positive light.