Fifty-six percent of American voters believe that Israel is an ally of the United States, while 3% see it as an enemy. A new poll by the Rasmussen organization shows that American perceptions of Israel remained good in September. Rasmussen pollsters asked a scientific sample of 1,000 Americans “Generally speaking, is Israel an ally of the United States, an enemy of the United States or somewhere in-between?” In response, 56% said “ally,” down slightly from the previous poll in August, and 3% said “enemy.” Thirty nine percent answered “in-between.”
The August poll listed Israel as third on a list of 12 nations in the news, behind only Great Britain and Canada, as the U.S.'s best friends.
In response to a second question, regarding American expectations for relations with Israel in the coming year, only 10% of voters believe that relations between the United States and Israel will be better by next year, while 27% think the relationship will be worse. Fifty-two percent believe that the U.S.-Israel relationship will be about the same a year from now. In August, 34% said that the Israel-U.S. Relationship would be worse in a year. Broken down by party affiliation, 43% of Republicans think relations with Israel will be worse in a year, while just 12% of Democrats and 28% of voters not affiliated with either major political party agreed.
Israel fared somewhat better than the Muslim world in the poll. Twelve percent of U.S. voters expect relations with the Muslim world to be better a year from now, while 39% expect them to be worse. Forty-one percent (41%) expect that relationship to be about the same. In addition, a large percentage of those polled said that the Palestinian Authority must recognize Israel as a Jewish state – but that such recognition is unlikely.
The poll of 1,000 U.S. voters was taken in late October, and had a sampling error margin of +/-3%.
