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AIPAC is targeting candidates who want to condition aid to Israel. Who has crossed its red line?
(JTA) — The flood of recent spending by a PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee against a Democratic congressional candidate in New Jersey had many observers scratching their heads: Why would the pro-Israel lobby go after someone who describes himself as pro-Israel, when there was a much more strident critic of Israel in the race?
The PAC’s answer: Tom Malinowski had expressed openness to conditioning U.S. aid to Israel — and that was now AIPAC’s red line.
“We are going to have a focus on stopping candidates who are detractors of Israel or who want to put conditions on aid,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, said in an interview.
The idea that U.S. aid to Israel should be contingent on Israeli behavior was long anathema to most American politicians, advocated only by the far left. But as the war in Gaza dragged on in 2024 and 2025, with Israel continuing its campaign despite the urging of two subsequent U.S. administrations, more lawmakers began to express openness to the idea.
That shift sped up last summer as reports of starvation in Gaza spread, and politicians who’d never previously done so voted to block certain weapons to Israel. Longtime allies in Congress are crossing red lines again and again. The new U.S.-Israel war against Iran is inflaming the discourse once again.
Now, with the November elections coming closer, a hobbled AIPAC is weighing which candidates to back across the country, even as an increasing number of politicians pledge not to accept their endorsement or their affiliated PAC’s money.
Here’s a rundown of who might find themselves in AIPAC’s crosshairs, why, and what they’re saying about the pro-Israel lobby that’s become increasingly toxic among Democratic voters.
Crossing a red line, but open to AIPAC support
Rep. Adam Smith was endorsed by AIPAC in his most recent election cycle, but has since declared his support for conditioning aid to Israel. The Democrat from Washington state wrote last summer that the United States should “stop the sale of some offensive weapons systems to Israel as leverage to pressure Israel” if it did not take a handful of concrete measures, including implementing a Gaza ceasefire, stopping expansion of settlements in the West Bank and taking “serious steps” to reduce violence there.
Smith, a member of Congress since 1997, will face a nonpartisan primary election in August before a November election between the top two candidates. His opponents include Kshama Sawant, a former Seattle City Council member running as an independent on a “working class, antiwar, anti-genocide” campaign. Sawant is in favor of ending all military aid to Israel, and has called its military campaign in Gaza “a new holocaust.”
Smith is walking the tightrope between supporting Israel and criticizing its government and policies — and, by extension, distancing himself from AIPAC. “I don’t know what AIPAC is going to do in my race,” Smith told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement sent by his campaign manager. “I have certainly taken votes and positions that are the opposite of what AIPAC wanted. On the other hand, I still support the right of Israel to exist, and understand the threats that Israel continues to face from Iran, the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas among others.”
Smith added that Israel has a right to defend itself against those threats “even if I don’t always agree with how Israel chooses to exercise that right.”
While Smith has taken positions counter to AIPAC’s mandate, he said he would still welcome support from its members.
“I do have a number of constituents in my district who are active members of AIPAC,” Smith wrote. “I speak with them regularly and yes, I would welcome their support if they choose to offer it even considering where we disagree.”
Illinois Rep. Jonathan Jackson is also among the vanishingly few Democrats to say publicly that they would still accept contributions from AIPAC. He also co-sponsored the Block the Bombs to Israel Act last summer, which would restrict the sale of certain U.S.-made weapons to Israel.
Defying AIPAC, and taking their chances
The list of politicians with pro-Israel voting records who are veering away from AIPAC’s stance is growing. It includes a number of politicians who haven’t publicly commented on whether they’d accept AIPAC contributions or an endorsement, but could become a target of its super PAC’s spending.
Oregon Rep. Maxine Dexter was endorsed by AIPAC and benefited from more than $2 million in UDP spending last election. Nevertheless, she was one of 21 cosponsors of legislation accusing Israel of committing a genocide that was backed by anti-Zionist groups like Codepink and Jewish Voice for Peace.
Dexter also cosponsored the unsuccessful Block the Bombs Act last September. In fact, a number of AIPAC’s 2024 endorsees signed onto the bill since it was rolled out in May, including California’s Robert Garcia, Oregon’s Suzanne Bonamici and Andrea Salinas, Sylvia Garcia in Texas and Steven Horsford in Nevada.
Congresspeople with pro-Israel records and some past AIPAC involvement also voted yes on the Block the Bombs legislation, including California Rep. Mark Takano, who traveled on an AIPAC-affiliated trip to Israel and the West Bank in 2013; and California Rep. Jared Huffman, who also traveled to Israel in 2013 with AIPAC’s affiliated educational nonprofit. Both have regularly been endorsed by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby, and not AIPAC.
Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost voted yes on Block the Bombs, three years after writing in a position paper that conditioning aid to Israel “would undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself against the very serious threats it faces.”
Other erstwhile pro-Israel politicians with increasingly critical stances on Israel have seemingly accepted that they, like Malinowski, could become the target of AIPAC’s spending.
That includes Sue Altman, who’s running in New Jersey’s nearby 12th district. In 2024, Altman won the Democratic nomination in a different district as a pro-Israel candidate endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, a centrist lobbying group that often overlaps in its endorsements with AIPAC. Altman lost to AIPAC-backed Republican Thomas Kean Jr. in the general election.
This year, according to audio leaked by Drop Site News, which has an anti-Israel bent, Altman said “a lot has happened” since 2024 and she is “going to be at least as left as Tom [Malinowski], if not more so” on aid to Israel.
“And so I can only anticipate that AIPAC, if they did it in 11, they’re going to do it here in 12,” she said, adding that there “might be other PACs too.” Last month, she posted on X, “AIPAC and countless SuperPACs are destroying our democracy by polarizing and misleading the public.”
Et tu, Senator?
In the Senate, in a landmark indication of shifting sentiment, a majority of Democrats voted in favor of Bernie Sanders-led resolutions last July that would block the sale of certain weapons to Israel.
The “yes” votes included eight senators who’d never previously voted to cut any aid to Israel: Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Patty Murray of Washington; Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware; Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who called himself “ardently pro-Israel” last year.
Reed, who is running for reelection, and Klobuchar, who is mounting a bid for governor, face elections this year. One of Klobuchar’s opponents, community organizer Kobey Layne, says she would prevent the state’s pension systems from “investing in companies facilitating Israeli settlements or military supplies to Israel.”
Delaware Sen. Chris Coons voted against Sanders’ resolutions. But Coons, who has previously spoken at AIPAC’s annual policy conference, said at an event last year he would be open to limiting weapons sales to Israel.
“If there is no change in direction from the Israeli administration, for the first time I would seriously consider that,” said Coons, who added that he has never “voted to withhold weapons from Israel, from the IDF.” Coons is up for reelection with a primary in September.
Meanwhile, not all of the “yes” votes have been seen as necessarily indicating a total shift on Israel.
Alsobrooks’ vote to cut aid drew concern from some members of the Jewish community to whom she’d expressed her support for Israel on the campaign trail. But Ron Halber, CEO of the Greater Washington Jewish Community Relations Council, said at the time that he spoke with Alsobrooks and believed she was casting a symbolic vote on a bill that had no real chance of passing.
“I don’t believe that this is a precursor to a fundamental shift on support for Israel,” he said.
But for AIPAC, voting in favor of one of Sanders’ numerous Israel resolutions is grounds for an attack ad.
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, voted to block certain weapons sales last July, as well as in November 2024. AIPAC released an ad attacking Ossoff, plus other lawmakers who supported Sanders’ November 2024 resolutions. DMFI endorsed Ossoff in 2020, but neither it nor AIPAC has backed any candidate in this year’s race.
You can’t fire me; I quit
Cognizant of AIPAC’s worsening public image, a growing number of moderate Democrats say they’ll refuse any campaign donations from the group.
One of those candidates — North Carolina Rep. Valerie Foushee — eked out a primary win last week by less than 1% of the vote. Foushee had been a prominent recipient of AIPAC support in 2022, benefiting from more than $2 million in spending by UDP. Her opponent, Nida Allam, was a Bernie Sanders-backed politician who accuses Israel of committing genocide.
AIPAC’s enemies smell blood in the water. Although Foushee says she will not accept AIPAC contributions during the 2026 campaign, the Working Families Party sent out a fundraising email in February in support of Allam, saying their candidate was “up against AIPAC and crypto billionaires.” (In her 2022 campaign that initially won her the House seat, also against Allam, Foushee was backed by pro-Israel PACs, including AIPAC, and a PAC primarily funded by Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur who has since been convicted of fraud. Foushee beat Allam by more than 9% that year.)
Another North Carolina incumbent, Rep. Deborah Ross, has sworn off AIPAC donations for this year after having previously taken them. The same is true for Kentucky Rep. Morgan McGarvey, who said last year, “We no longer take AIPAC money.”
Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton has gone a step further, saying he would return his approximately $35,000 in donations from AIPAC. Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running for US Senate in Illinois, swore off AIPAC funds and has shifted to a more critical stance toward Israel, including supporting the Block the Bombs Act and accusing Israel of genocide. Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, who’s received AIPAC contributions, has done the same as Kelly.
Other Democrats, such as New York Rep. Dan Goldman, have sworn off corporate PAC money altogether, including from AIPAC-affiliated PACs as well as DMFI, which recently released its first round of House candidate endorsements.
Goldman has kept his AIPAC ties intact, however, and accepted its endorsement in his campaign against progressive challenger Brad Lander.
It remains to be seen whether UDP will spend in districts like Goldman’s. While a candidate can refuse a contribution, independent ad expenditures may be made without coordination with campaigns. In some instances, those ads are positive and encourage viewers to vote for AIPAC’s preferred candidate.
In the case of New Jersey, AIPAC’s “Anybody but Malinowski” pitch appeared to backfire when a harsh critic of Israel eked out a victory, and only added to the lobby’s growing sense of embattlement.
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Europe’s smallest Jewish community gets a home of its own — complete with geothermal mikvah
(JTA) — REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Until recently, this city located near the Arctic Circle was one of the few places in Europe where organized Jewish life did not exist — no synagogue, no ritual bath, no communal building. That changed this week, as the Jewish community in Iceland opened the Beit Shvidler Jewish Center of Iceland, the country’s first-ever Jewish center.
The center is housed in a renovated, roughly 9,000-square-foot building in downtown Reykjavik that once operated as a bar and, before that, as the headquarters of a political party. It sits just minutes from where the husband-and-wife team of Rabbi Avraham and Mushky Feldman have lived and worked since arriving on the island in 2018. The project has been funded largely through community donations.
The center includes a synagogue, a seminar room seating nearly 80 people, a kosher shop, a community kitchen, a youth center, a library lounge and a security center, amenities the community has never had access to in one place.
There is also a mikvah, or ritual bath, that is heated geothermally, using the abundant underground volcanic heat that provides much of the country’s power.
“Jews here were yearning for a synagogue, for a rabbi, for some sort of a community,” Avraham Feldman said of the years before the couple’s arrival, “and it has been amazing to fill that need.”
Community members agree.
“Iceland has a highly diverse, dispersed and diffused Jewish community; given that we’re an isolated island, we all kind of washed up here,” said Michael Klein, an American Jew living in Iceland since 2020.
“The Feldmans managed to pull together the resources, the building and the work to turn a disused political party headquarters and restaurant into a Jewish center that can serve not only our small community but the far larger group of visitors from all over the Jewish world who come for our natural beauty and peaceful isolation,” added Klein.
Jewish life in Iceland has always been sparse and intermittent. Jewish traders are known to have passed through as early as the 1600s. Still, the organized Jewish presence dates to the late 1800s, and the first practicing Jew believed to have settled permanently was Fritz Natan, a businessman who, in 1917, built Iceland’s first five-story building.
For decades afterward, Jewish life in Iceland survived on the efforts of a handful of dedicated volunteers who coordinated informal gatherings, often meeting in rented spaces or in the basement of Hallgrímskirkja, the country’s most recognizable church. The U.S. Navy base in the town of Keflavík, near the international airport, occasionally provided Jewish chaplains until it closed in 2006. But there was still no permanent institution, no resident rabbi, and no dedicated building, a gap that led some to call Reykjavik the only European capital without a synagogue.
That began to change in 2018, when the Feldmans relocated from the United States to Reykjavik to establish a Chabad-Lubavitch presence, becoming Iceland’s first permanently stationed rabbi and his wife in the country’s documented history of a thousand years. The couple started small, hosting Shabbat dinners and holiday services out of their living room. Estimates of the community’s size hover around 300 self-identified Jews, out of Iceland’s total population of about 400,000.
Momentum built quickly. In 2020, the Jewish community celebrated its first native Torah scroll, commissioned by a donor in Switzerland and completed with the help of the Icelandic congregation. A year later, the Icelandic government formally recognized Judaism as an official religion, opening the door to officially recognized Jewish weddings and allowing residents to direct part of their religious tax to the community. How many have done so is not public information.
By 2024, the community had outgrown its rented rooms and church basements and purchased the building that became the new Jewish center, roughly tying one in Fairbanks, Alaska, as the northernmost Chabad houses in the world. The building sits in Reykjavik’s compact downtown, just blocks from the iconic Rainbow Street and Harpa Opera House that make the city one of the most Instagram-friendly sites in the world.
In a city that caters to tourists, and for a community built largely from immigrants, longtime Icelandic Jewish families, and people who married into Icelandic life, the new center represents something rare: a shared physical home.
“It’s been clear for a long time that we need a home for our community,” said one Jewish resident in Iceland, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because not all of his colleagues know he is Jewish. (Iceland’s relatively small number of Jews means that there is little record of antisemitism; anti-Israel sentiment is strong, with the country one of five to boycott the Eurovision song contest this year over Israel’s participation.)
“It’s not like we’ve been hiding or aren’t a strong community; we celebrate holidays together, and there are Shabbat dinners,” he continued. “But I think it’s important that we have this center. Seeing it opened is very moving and important.”
Like many Jewish institutions in Europe, the center will ensure security by being open only to members of the community or visitors who reach out in advance.
Avraham Feldman said the space will hold a display case with three small prayer books donated by early Jewish residents, the only known surviving physical remnants of Jewish life in Iceland before his arrival, a reminder of how recent, and how hard-won, this permanence has been.
“The result of this center is a combination of home, family, and permanence that was unimaginable when I started visiting 14 years ago and was only a mere dream when I moved here in 2020,” Klein said.
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Armenia’s Jews hope Israeli recognition of 1915 Ottoman genocide will jumpstart bilateral ties
(JTA) — YEREVAN, Armenia — Last Friday night, 13 mostly Russian-speaking Jews and three Arab Muslims gathered under a cherry tree next to the popular Common Grounds coffee shop in Yerevan — capital of the world’s oldest Christian country — to welcome Shabbat.
Samson Karapetyan — the son of an Armenian Christian father and a Jewish mother from Azerbaijan — recited the Hebrew blessing for wine over a glass of Georgian Palavani kosher merlot. Karapetyan, 29, stood at the head of a table piled high with hummus, falafel, pita, stuffed grape leaves, babaganoush and other Middle Eastern delicacies supplied by a local Lebanese caterer.
Then everyone, including the three invited Arabs, joined in a spirited rendition of “Lecha Dodi” — with printed transliterations in English for those not familiar with the traditional Jewish melody.
“I’m so glad we have a community here,” said Ekaterina Goldschmidt, 32, a tattooed landscape architect who showed up to the Shabbat dinner with Teya, her little black Kokoni dog.
The dinner was organized by Yerevan Jewish Home, a social network formed by Russian-born journalist and blogger Nathaniel Trubkin in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. That ongoing war spurred a large exodus from both countries and brought as many as 2,000 Jews to Armenia — boosting the ex-Soviet republic’s tiny Jewish population tenfold and injecting new blood into what had been a stagnant, dwindling community of mostly pensioners.
The explosion of Jewish life came against the backdrop of frosty ties between Armenia and Israel, the country that absorbed the most Ukrainian and Russian Jewish emigres since the war’s start. The chill has been a consequence of Armenia’s close relations with neighboring Iran as well as Israel’s unwillingness to offend Turkey by naming as a genocide the Ottoman massacre of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.
Another key obstacle has been resentment over Israel’s extensive weapons sales to neighboring Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has fought several border wars in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Those obstacles may be falling away. Last year in Washington, predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan and mostly Christian Armenia signed a peace treaty at the urging of U.S. President Donald Trump — garnering praise from Jewish leaders in both countries.
And on June 29, Israel’s Cabinet unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the 1915 genocide. That declaration now goes to the full Knesset where, despite intense lobbying from both Turkey and Azerbaijan, it will likely be ratified — making Israel the 36th country to take that step.
“The Jewish community here is happy that Israel has finally recognized this genocide,” Trubkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Every self-respecting Jew knows what happened to the Armenians, though of course many Armenians are asking, ‘Why only now?’ It’s all about politics.”
Added Karapetyan: “Everyone understands that our two nations have a similar heritage, with a similar destiny. It is impossible, when you speak about the Shoah, to not also speak about the Armenian genocide. If we study one of them, we need to study the other.”
Both Turkey and its ally, Azerbaijan, immediately condemned the Cabinet vote; the chief rabbi of Azerbaijan’s Ashkenazi congregation in Baku, Shneur Segal, has already urged Israel to reverse it immediately.
The reaction from Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was cold. Suggesting that Israel is motivated purely by geopolitics, he told reporters the day the change was announced: “We believe that not entering into the issue of the weaponization of the Armenian genocide is in the interests of the Republic of Armenia. Therefore, we do not see any need for a response.”
Other external factors appear to be drawing Yerevan and Jerusalem closer together.
Late last month, some 350 women representing the Israeli labor federation Histadrut gathered at Yerevan’s Megerian Carpet Restaurant to mark International Day of Women in Diplomacy. The event featured popular songs in Hebrew by prominent Georgian vocalist Kristi Japaridze as well as a performance of traditional Armenian music and dance.
The Histadrut visit — the largest such Israeli delegation to tour Armenia in years — was organized with help from Israeli House, an NGO based in Jerusalem. Founded in 2012 by former Jewish Agency official Itsik Moshe, the network promotes Israeli culture and business, and now operates in 30 countries including both Azerbaijan and Turkey.
Moshe, who is also president of the Israel-Georgia Chamber of Business, said Israeli House will open its next outpost in Armenia sometime in August or September.
Assisting Moshe is Andranik Arakelyan, an educational consultant at Yerevan’s National Polytechnic University, though a specific location has yet to be decided. In its final form, he suggested, Israeli House could include a business center to showcase Israeli tourism as well as innovations in agriculture and medicine.
“I consider Israeli House as a cultural first step for strengthening ties between our two nations. The rest is up to politicians and diplomats,” said Arakelyan, 36, a Christian who spent four years in Glendale, California, a predominantly Armenian suburb of Los Angeles.
“This is the best time for our countries to get closer,” Arakelyan said, while acknowledging that “a small minority” of Armenians hold antisemitic views. “Many parties here question the timing of this [genocide] recognition, calling it a political maneuver. But when the draft becomes resolution in the Knesset, Armenians will see that it wasn’t fake.”
Marina Kozliner, a community activist who has long campaigned for this recognition, said reaction among the 10,000 or so Armenian Jews and Christian living in Israel has been mixed.
“On one hand, there is real happiness. Our community has waited for this for decades,” said Kozliner, the daughter of a Jewish father and an Armenian atheist mother who is based in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv. “On the other, many people feel it came at the wrong political moment. Because of that, something that should have been a moral decision has become a political tool, and that has taken away part of the joy.”
She added: “Still, I prefer to look ahead. Armenia is making real efforts to move toward peace and to normalize relations with its neighbors, including Azerbaijan. That gives many of us hope for a more stable future in the region.”
In fact, the same day Trubkin and his friends were celebrating their Shabbat dinner in Yerevan, Narek Mkrtchyan, Armenia’s ambassador to the United States, received prominent pro-Israel philanthropist and Trump supporter Miriam Adelson in Washington, D.C.
“We had an interesting and substantive conversation regarding the Armenia-U.S. agenda, investment opportunities in Armenia, and the country’s rich historical and cultural heritage,” Mkrtchyan posted on Facebook, adding, “Mrs. Adelson expressed great interest in considering a visit to Armenia.”
Eric Hacopian, a political analyst who made his career advising Democratic candidates in southern California, suggested that such a meeting “could not have happened a few months ago.”
But when it comes to Armenian-Israeli relations, he said, it’s important to take a long-term view of the genocide declaration from Jerusalem..
“I think something like this five to 10 years ago would have meant a lot more. It means a lot less now,” he said. “One reason is that [Prime Minister Pashinyan] is particularly anti-nationalist and more focused on normalization of ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan, so they won’t engage directly with Israel.”
He predicted a long-term shift. “I’m very confident that over the next 10 or 15 years, we’re going to see a switcheroo, in which Israel will have much better relations with Armenia, and more problematic relations with Azerbaijan,” Hacopian said. “I see relations improving, mostly because Turkish-Israeli relations are going downhill, and Israel’s relations with Azerbaijan are entirely transactional — oil for weapons and access to Iran.”
And if and when the Islamist regime in Iran collapses, Azerbaijan’s strategic importance to Israel declines as well, and Armenia’s increases. For one thing, Hacopian noted, Armenia’s economy is booming. In 2018, per-capita GDP was around $4,500; this year, it’ll likely surpass $10,000 — helped along by the presence of information technology giants including AMD, Synopsis and Invidia.
“The one ‘X factor’ no one notices is that the IT business is booming. Israeli IT firms are already here, and data centers are being built,” he said. “You cannot be in the IT business in this region if you don’t have relations with Israel.”
Meanwhile, Jewish life is taking root in Armenia, thanks largely to the efforts of Trubkin and his friends in the Yerevan Jewish Home network.
Goldschmidt, the tattooed landscape artist with the dog, was born and raised in Saratov — a major city southeast of Moscow. She left Russia in 2023, about a year after it attacked Ukraine.
“When everything started, I shared my opinions and told everyone what I thought. Eventually, I had to leave; otherwise I’d have ended up in jail,” said the young woman, who moved to Berlin and then spent four years in Limassol and Nicosia with her Cypriot ex-boyfriend. She’s now been in Armenia for the past six months — where she proudly wears a Star of David necklace — and wants to open an art gallery here.
Karapetyan, who recently spent a semester at the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden, sees a future for liberal Judaism among the newcomers to Armenia.
“Jews here cannot relate to the Orthodox way of life. They like their freedom, and they’re not used to having separate seating for men and women,” he said. Karapetyan said that he has discussed joint projects with Rabbi Gershon Burshteyn, who has led Yerevan’s only synagogue — the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center of Armenia — since 1996.
Trubkin says his Telegram chat has around 600 people.
“Every week, I meet several new people asking about Jewish life in Armenia — people from Russia, from Israel, from Moldova. For some of them, it’s their second round of emigration,” he said, adding that he’s looking to establish a physical presence for Yerevan Jewish Home. “And we’re also establishing a new Armenian-Israeli organization for business and culture.”
The sense of optimism is palpable, even with an undercurrent of concern about the influence that Turkey plays in the region. But if Israel fails — for whatever reason — to formally recognize the Armenian genocide after raising expectations, all bets are off.
“I sincerely hope that the Israeli government will complete this process and that the Knesset will adopt an official resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide,” said former Knesset member Alexander Tsinker, co-chair of the Armenia-Israel Public Forum. “Otherwise, it would be, to put it mildly, unacceptable.”
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Americans’ views of Israelis have grown more negative, survey finds
(JTA) — While Americans view Israelis far more favorably than the Israeli government, their opinion of the Jewish state’s residents has continued to decline, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
The survey, which surveyed 12,574 U.S. adults from May 4 to May 17, 2026, found that 52% have a favorable opinion of the Israeli people, compared with 42% who held an unfavorable opinion.
A similar share held a favorable view of Palestinians, with 50% saying they held a favorable opinion while 44% had unfavorable views. The margin of error for the full sample was plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.
The survey found that Americans’ views of Israelis have grown increasingly negative in recent years, while views toward Palestinians have remained steady. In 2022, 67% of U.S. adults held a favorable view of Israelis, dropping to 52% this year, while views of Palestinians have dropped from 53% to 50%.
Unfavorable views of Israelis rose from 25% in 2022 to 42% this year, while unfavorable views of Palestinians rose from 39% in 2022 to 44% this year.
In contrast, the majority of Americans, 62%, held unfavorable views of the Israeli government, while 69% said they held an unfavorable opinion of the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, and 84% said they had an unfavorable view of Hamas.
The Pew survey was conducted prior to Hamas’ announcement Monday that it will dissolve its government in Gaza ahead of its transfer to the Palestinian technocratic committee that was established by President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
The survey comes as a number of recent polls show, for the first time, Americans sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis.
Opinions of Israeli and Palestinian people were split among Republicans and Democrats, with 65% of Republicans holding a favorable view of Israelis compared to 43% of Democrats. Roughly two-thirds of Democrats held a favorable view of Palestinians, compared to one-third of Republicans.
Just over half of Democrats now hold an unfavorable view of Israelis, up from 31% in 2022. Among Republicans, the share that held a negative view towards Israelis also rose from 17% in 2022 to 31% in 2026.
U.S. adults under 30-years-old were also more likely to hold a favorable view of Palestinians, at 58%, than Israelis, at 32%. According to pollsters, the attitude was largely driven by young Democrats, of which 72% held a positive view toward Palestinians and just 26% held a positive view of Israelis.
Among Jewish respondents, the poll found that attitudes toward the Israeli people and government had declined in recent years. Since 2024, their favorable views of the Israeli people had fallen from 89% to 83%, and favorable opinions toward the Israeli government had fallen from 54% to 47%.
It also found that 40% of Jewish adults in the U.S. view the Palestinian people favorably, compared to 58% who said they viewed Palestinians unfavorably. Just 10% of Jewish adults said they held a favorable view toward the Palestinian Authority, and 2% said they held a favorable view of Hamas.
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