Is Israel a democracy? This is what Americans think

Israel’s unprecedented and ongoing protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms, which threatened to significantly weaken the judiciary, have grabbed news headlines around the world. They have also coincided with an increase in violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. While the protests largely ignored Israel’s military rule over millions of Palestinians, they drew attention to the dangers to democracy even under Israel’s pre-1967 rule. within limits. It’s hard to know if these protests have had any effect on Americans’ perception of Israel, and if so, in what direction. While these protests may draw attention to the right-wing government’s autocratic ambitions, they may also highlight the existence of a free environment, at least for hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens, to protest freely and reject government plans. Do Americans see Israel as a viable democracy or something less?

To find out, we asked a few questions in the University of Maryland Critical Issues Survey with Ipsos, which I run with my colleague Stella Rose. The poll was conducted between March 27 and April 5, 2023, among 1,203 respondents by the Ipsos probabilistic KnowledgePanel (margin of error 3.2%).

We asked. “You can follow the latest developments in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Which of the following do you think most closely describes what Israel looks like to you? We provided the following four options: Vibrant democracy. incomplete democracy; a state with limited minority rights. a state with apartheid-like segregation. The results were surprising on many levels.

First, the number of respondents who said they did not know was too large for such a question. more than half of all respondents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans. This number of people who say they did not know is usually reserved for issues about which unfamiliarity can be expected (for example, questions about Boycott, Divestment and the Sanctions Movement (BDS). As a rule, opinion respondents often answer even when they do not fully understand the question. All this indicates that there is a degree of discomfort among respondents when answering this question. This is also due to the fact that those who said they did not know are very high even among those with college and advanced degrees; Among the Republicans, the majority of those with higher and higher education said: “I do not know”:

Second, much more public exposure to the issue can be expected in this case. Israel has been a hot topic in American discourse for decades, especially among Republicans in recent years. It is common to hear Israel referred to as “the only democracy in the Middle East” or referring to its “shared values” with the United States. However, even the highest percentage among all respondents, 31%, was equally shared between those who described Israel as a “flawed democracy” and those who described it as a “segregative state akin to apartheid.” Among Republicans, a plurality of 41% said it was a “vibrant democracy,” while 20% said it was a “segregated state akin to apartheid.”

For the Democrats, the story was strikingly different. A large majority, 44%, said it was a “segregated state similar to apartheid”, followed by 34% who said it was a “flawed democracy”. This is noteworthy because the use of the term “apartheid” in mainstream American discourse, although heard more and more, is still extremely rare and even taboo in many circles.

Do these results reflect the impact of recent events in Israel/Palestine and the rise of a far-right government in Israel? It’s hard to say, because this is the first time we ask this question in our survey.

Notably, however, in one of our follow-up questions about US policy toward Israel/Palestine, we found attitudes little changed from our October poll. When examining whether respondents wanted the United States to lean toward Israel, the Palestinians, or neither side, we found only a slight decrease in the number of people who want the United States to lean toward Israel, mostly within the margin of error.

Finally, we asked respondents about their views on the BDS movement. In this case, we added the “unfamiliar” choice to the “don’t know” choice to try to better understand the meaning of the answers. Unsurprisingly, a large number, 39%, said they were unfamiliar, while 26% said they did not know, which is still a high percentage, perhaps indicating that they also have some were uncomfortable expressing an opinion on this matter.

Examining the results among pollsters, there was a surprisingly large difference between Democrats and Republicans. Among Republicans, 65% said they oppose BDS. The picture was different for the Democrats. a large majority of respondents, 41%, said they were in favor of it, while only 20% were against it.

It is clear that the public’s attitude towards Israel is changing. The term “apartheid” seems to have become a household term among many Americans, especially Democrats, and even the BDS movement, which has faced significant obstacles in the American mainstream, appears to have significant support among Democrats who have spoken out. A recent Gallup poll found that for the first time in years spent on Israeli-Palestinian issues, more Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, by 11 percentage points. And while about half of Republicans continue to say they want the United States to lean toward Israel, that support is falling among young Republicans, to 32% in the current poll, and as other surveys have shown, support for Israel is declining even among young people. . evangelical Christians.