About seven in 10 Israelis have confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump and, compared to other countries, Israel gave the United States the most favorable rating, according to a new Pew Research Center poll released on Wednesday.
Out of the Israelis that have confidence in the American leader, 74 percent endorsed his decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018, and 66 percent supported withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that same month.
Overall, of the 32 countries polled, 64 percent said they do not have confidence in Trump to do the correct thing in global affairs, while only 29 percent expressed confidence in the U.S. president.
Israelis gave the United States the highest favorable rating at 83 percent, while Mexico, where Trump wants to build a wall along its border with the United States, gave the least favorable rating at 36 percent.
Although 94 percent of Israeli Jews view the United States positively, only 37 percent of Israeli Arabs concur. In other Mideast and North African countries, attitudes towards America are mostly negative. Only one in five Turks see the United States favorably.
The poll did not address recent tensions with Iran and the missile attacks this week on two U.S. bases in Iraq as it was conducted before to the Jan. 3 U.S. elimination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.
The survey was also conducted before Trump’s controversial July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which the former pressed the latter to investigate former U.S. vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of the Ukrainian oil and gas firm Burisma. As a result of the call, last month, Trump became the first Republican president, third overall, to be impeached.
