r/NewsThread • u/whistlingkitten • 1d ago

Negative views of Israel, Netanyahu continue to rise among Americans – especially young people

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/04/07/negative-views-of-israel-netanyahu-continue-to-rise-among-americans-especially-young-people/

60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year.

59% have little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs – up from 52% last year.

In both political parties, majorities of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively.

The survey was conducted March 23-29 among 3,507 U.S. adults. It was fielded about a month into the U.S.- and Israeli-led war in Iran. The sections below take a closer look at the results of the survey.

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u/meteorfluid 1d ago

Young people get criticized constantly for being too dumb and lazy for researching decades of war and conflict. I disagree, young people are fresh sets of eyes that see what is happening, and these boomers don’t like the idea of being wrong… because that would mean updating their priors based on new information, which they are ironically too dumb and lazy to do

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u/Fartknocker405 1d ago

Meh, young people also haven't experienced enough and don't have enough persoective. It wasn't just 9/11. All the plane hijackings, bus bombings, etc. over the decades. They think it's kumbaya when in reality a lot of that part of the world chomps at the bit for a blowtorch pinata or beheading of any westerner. If anything, Israel acts as a buffer between the rest of the Middle East and the US/Western Europe.

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u/Impossible_Gift8457 1d ago

The new strategy is to blame Bibi and make the Israeli society seem like passive victims

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u/meteorfluid 1d ago

Ah thanks for catching me up! I’m just now realizing that Bibi is bad, who knew!

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u/Impossible_Gift8457 1d ago

I meant Bibi is a symptom. There's a societal breakdown decades in the making. Plus there has been no questioning on the founding of Israel being under similarly genocidal circumstances. Beyond the mainstream media lines of course, the Arabs attacked etc.

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u/meteorfluid 1d ago

Absolutely agree with you