The Knesset Subcommittee for Foreign Policy and Public Diplomacy, chaired by Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, convened on Wednesday to discuss views of Israel following Operation Rising Lion against Iran.
The committee reached out ahead of the meeting to the Harris-Harvard polling institute requesting various data in order to “understand the state of Israel’s public diplomacy, the challenges it faces, its successes in crafting effective campaigns, and how well it understands key target audiences in the US,” according to a statement from the committee.
According to the institute’s findings from its most recent poll this month, American support for Israel slightly declined since October 7, from 80% to 75%. However, when broken down by age groups, significant gaps emerged. Among young people, support is almost evenly split between Israel and Hamas (53% to 47%), while among those aged 65 and older, support for Israel is close to 90%.
The percentage of Americans who view Israel favorably dropped from 53% to 41% since October 7, while the proportion of those with a negative view rose from 21% to 30%, and the share of those with no opinion increased from 25% to 29%.
American support for Hamas has grown
Most Americans oppose Hamas and support the return of hostages as a precondition for a ceasefire. Still, support for Hamas has grown over the course of the war – from 16% in November 2023 to 25% in June 2025.
Most Americans are unfamiliar with Israeli politicians aside from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who currently has just 25% support – lower than the general support for Israel (41%). Netanyahu’s approval dropped from 34% in October 2023 to 20% in September 2024. There is a strong correlation between support for Netanyahu and support for Israel, as well as between support for Trump and support for Netanyahu, the poll found.
Gal Ilan, Senior Director of Strategy and Public Diplomacy in the Prime Minister’s Office, said during the meeting, “The decline in support among young people in the US is a known and challenging issue that deserves serious attention. As we understand it, the sentiment tends to align with a perception of victimhood. The key distinction lies in the platforms where they are exposed to information – where they consume content. That’s a gap we’re working to overcome.”
According to Yonatan Bar El, Director of the foreign ministry’s Department for Coordination and Planning, “There needs to be a distinction between branding and crisis management, and we’ve been in crisis management for nearly two years now. If we consider the volume of negative media coverage against Israel in the US, it would cost us a fortune to run a counter-campaign. The issue of casualties in Gaza holds significant weight – the number that becomes fixed in the global media is the one presented by Hamas, whether it’s accurate or not,” Bar El said.
According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, some 51,156 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, out of which over 17,000 were children, 9,000 were women, and 132,239 people have been injured. The numbers do not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Bar El said that a small number of employees began preparing for public diplomacy efforts on the evening of June 12, hours before Israel launched its opening strike against Iran. Bar El said that his team’s strategy involved “activating” civil society groups and influencers, which he described as a “force multiplier.”
Bar El added that the Foreign Ministry’s social media platforms received over 1 billion exposures during the operation’s 12 days, with some 380 million of these coming from its Persian-language platforms. Additionally, foreign ministry representatives conducted over 1,000 interviews, approximately half of which were conducted by civil society members and not formal representatives.
Col. Avichay Edrei, the IDF’s Spokesperson in Arabic, revealed during the meeting that a small team from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit knew about the surprise strike against Iran and prepared in advance. Edrei said that the IDF’s digital platforms in Persian now had some 900,000 followers, 85% of whom were from within Iran.
MK Turpaz concluded the meeting, “Support for Israel during the war exists. The challenge among young people stems from disinformation, a lack of knowledge, and information sources with which we haven’t sufficiently engaged – especially on social media. That’s the main challenge. A vacuum doesn’t fill itself with a narrative – knowledge must be met with knowledge.”
“Despite improved coordination among the agencies, there is still no government decision in place, including on the need for a national spokesperson. The State of Israel needs people who will explain it, who will speak on its behalf officially – and ideally, they should be civilians,” Turpaz said.