Americans still favor Israelis to Palestinians

According to a poll released ahead of the PM's meeting with Obama, Seventy one percent of Americans have positive views of Israel.

By OREN KESSLER
Peres meets with Obama after both addressed AIPAC 390 (photo credit: Moshe Milner GPO)
Peres meets with Obama after both addressed AIPAC 390
(photo credit: Moshe Milner GPO)
Americans continue to view Israelis far more favorably than Palestinians, according to a poll released this weekend ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meeting on Monday with US President Barack Obama.
Seventy-one percent of Americans said they had positive views of Israel, compared with just 19% who said the same of the Palestinians, according to a Gallup poll conducted over the first week of February.
Republicans were more likely to be well disposed toward Israel than independents or Democrats, with favorability ratings at 80, 71 and 65%, respectively.
Asked with which side they sympathize in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, 61% of Americans said Israel, while 19% said the Palestinians and the same figure said neither or had no opinion. Among Republicans, 78% said they side more with Israel, as did 56% of Democrats and 53% of independents.
In a separate Gallup poll, Americans were asked to rank a list of 20 countries according to favorability. Canada came first at 96%, followed by Australia and Great Britain. Israel appeared seventh, the Palestinians 15th and Iran at the very bottom with just 10% favorability.
“The United States has long been an ally of Israel, and Americans continue to show decidedly positive views toward that nation,” the pollsters concluded. “As nations throughout the Middle East undergo tumultuous change, perhaps making the region more politically unstable, Americans still appear to see Israel as important, with large majorities viewing it favorably and many more giving their sympathies to the Israelis than to the Palestinians.”