Pew: Americans’ views of Israeli people, government grow more negative as views of Palestinians hold steady
Pew found that Americans now view the Israeli and Palestinian peoples nearly equally favorably, marking a change from 2022, even as large majorities continue to disapprove of the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas.
Americans’ opinions of the Israeli people and government have grown markedly more negative in recent years across both partisan groups, while views of the Palestinian people have remained largely unchanged, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
The poll, conducted May 4-17 among 12,574 U.S. adults, found that the share of Americans with favorable views of the Israeli people fell from 67% in 2022 to 52% in 2026. Unfavorable opinions rose from 25% to 42% over the same period. Views of the Israeli government were more negative: 32% of respondents expressed a favorable opinion, while 62% expressed an unfavorable one.
By contrast, 50% of Americans held a favorable view of the Palestinian people in 2026, little changed from 53% in 2022. Forty-four percent held an unfavorable view. As a result, Americans now view the Palestinian people nearly as favorably as they view the Israeli people — a notable shift from 2022, when the Israeli people held a 14-point advantage.
Decline cuts across parties, age groups
Favor toward the Israeli people and government has dropped across political and demographic lines. Both Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents and Democrats and Democratic-leaning respondents have grown more negative since 2022, though the decline has been steeper among Democrats. The partisan divide has consequently widened.
According to the survey, 65% of Republicans and Republican leaners held a favorable view of the Israeli people, down from 77% in 2022. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 43% held a favorable view, down from 62% in 2022. Fifty-one percent of Republicans viewed the Israeli government favorably, down from 65% in 2022, while only 16% of Democrats did so, down from 35% in 2022.
The differences between age groups were especially pronounced. Americans under 30 view the Palestinian people more favorably than the Israeli people, 58% to 32%. Young Democrats were especially likely to view the Palestinian people favorably, with 72% doing so, compared with 26% who viewed the Israeli people favorably.
Older Americans, by comparison, remained more positive about the Israeli people than the Palestinian people. Among adults 65 and older, 68% viewed the Israeli people favorably, compared with 47% who viewed the Palestinian people favorably.
Among U.S. religious groups, Jewish adults (83%) and White evangelical Protestants (74%) held the most favorable views of the Israeli people, while Muslims (26%) and the religiously unaffiliated (40%) held the least favorable views. White evangelical Protestants reported the lowest favorability toward the Palestinian people among the religious groups surveyed, with 33% expressing a favorable opinion.
Among Catholics, views of the two peoples were nearly even: 51% viewed the Israeli people favorably, while 48% viewed the Palestinian people favorably. Catholics were considerably less positive toward their governing bodies, with 34% expressing a favorable view of the Israeli government and 20% saying the same of the Palestinian Authority.
Jewish respondents’ views have become somewhat less favorable since 2024. The share who viewed the Israeli people favorably fell from 89% to 83%, while the share with a favorable view of the Israeli government declined from 54% to 47%.
>> New poll finds American Jews view Mamdani more favorably than Netanyahu <<
Political leadership draws broad disapproval
Majorities of Americans held unfavorable views of the Israeli government and both Palestinian governing organizations included in the survey. Sixty-two percent viewed the Israeli government unfavorably, while 69% held an unfavorable view of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governing authority in parts of the West Bank. Eighty-four percent viewed Hamas, which Pew said controlled Gaza at the time of the survey, unfavorably.
Negative views of the Israeli government have risen sharply in recent years, while opinions of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have remained relatively stable since Pew began asking about them in 2024, Pew found.
The survey was conducted about two months after the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran began. Pew noted that the polling concluded before Hamas announced that it would dissolve its government in Gaza. The survey had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.
