New poll finds high support for Trump among Israelis
83% deem US president-elect ‘pro-Israel,’ though few believe he’ll follow through on promise of moving embassy to Jerusalem
A new poll found that the vast majority of Israelis believe US President-elect Donald Trump will be a “pro-Israel president.”
According to the poll, 83 percent of Israelis view Trump, a Republican who has made statements putting him in line with many of the Israeli government’s right-wing policies, as pro-Israel.
The poll, which surveyed 500 Israelis and was conducted by the Dialog polling firm on behalf of the Ruderman Family Foundation, did not define “pro-Israel,” though it is usually used in such contexts as shorthand for being supportive of Israeli government policies.
Trump has said he will seek to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, while statements by him and advisers have painted him as supporting or being willing to tolerate settlement building and recognize a unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, two issues on which the Benjamin Netanyahu government often clashed with US President Barack Obama over the last six years.
The poll found that 48% of Israelis believe there is no chance that Trump’s election will lead to a peace deal with the Palestinians, while another 47% said there is a “possible chance.”
On Trump’s promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, only 22% said they believe that there is a high probability he will make the move, while 49% said there is a “possible chance” and another 26% said there is no chance.
Most Israelis polled also said they were not overly concerned with fears of a rise in anti-Semitism in the US in the wake of Trump’s victory, which has emboldened some racist and anti-Semitic groups, part of the so-called “alt-right.”
While 32% of Israelis polled said there was concern, another 32% reported only slight concern and 20% said there was no concern. Only 16% said they were very concerned.
“Israelis are optimistic that President-elect Trump will be a friend of Israel while at the same time they are concerned about the growing incidents of anti Semitism in the United States and its impact on the American Jewish community,” Ruderman Foundation head Jay Ruderman said in a statement.
In regards to the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump said during the campaign he would tear up, calling it one of the worst agreements in history, 42% of Israelis believe there is no chance he will scrap the nuclear accord, with only 13% saying there is a high chance he will tear up the deal.
A poll released four days prior to the election found that 49% of Israelis believed that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton would be a better candidate, whereas as only 32% preferred Trump.
The preference of Clinton among Israelis was largely explained by the long history she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had with Israel and the familiarity of Israelis with their positions, whereas Trump was viewed by many as a wild card due to his lack of foreign policy experience and contradictory statements.
