Last week, at the signing of the preliminary agreement between Iran and the United States, there was one great absentee : Israel. Which has not laid down its arms against Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah (in the LaPresse photo, a fragment of an Iranian missile in the desert of Judea), but meanwhile it must be registering a grave defeat in terms of its international image.
From last year to today, on all the continents, the judgments on Israel have gotten significantly worse. This has been confirmed by the Pew Research Center in Washington, which conducted a parallel survey between February and May in 36 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia, comparing it with similar surveys conducted in 2025.
Of 36 countries, only in four do the positive judgments on Israel exceed the negative : India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. But here too, a sharp reversal of the trend is underway. In Nigeria, for example, in 2025 positive judgments were expressed by 59 of those interviewed, against 32 percent who gave a negative judgment. But today the positive judgments have dropped to 47 percent, and the negative have risen to 41.
Negative judgments, as foreseeable, overwhelmingly prevail in countries with Muslim populations. Turkey holds first place, with 97 percent negative judgments (almost all “very negative”) and only 1 percent positive.
But also in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the spread is very wide : 85 against 4. And likewise if not more so in Pakistan, 95 against 3 ; in Malaysia, 89 against 11 ; in Indonesia, 86 against 13 ; in Bangladesh, 79 against 13.
In Europe too, Israel racks up predominantly negative opinions. In Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, unfavorable judgments exceed 75 percent of those interviewed, compared with only 17 – 21 percent favorable. Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, France, and Greece follow closely behind, all with negative opinions between 65 and 73 percent. The only European country that appears a bit better disposed in its judgment of Israel is Hungary, but here too with 54 percent unfavorable against 32 percent favorable.
Japan, 83 negative against 13, Australia, 79 against 19, Singapore, 72 against 28, South Korea, 70 against 27, the Philippines, 64 against 32, match up with Europe in the spread between positive and negative judgments.
While Latin America comes in one step lower, with unfavorable judgments between 50 and 60 percent and the favorable between 22 and 33 in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru.
The same is true in South Africa, where negative judgments are 58 percent and the positive 27 percent, and in Canada, 65 against 28.
And in the United States ? Here 60 percent are unfavorable and 37 percent are favorable. But with a very wide spread between those who declare themselves on the right and those on the left. Among the latter, a good 83 percent judge Israel negatively, while among those on the right only 37 percent are unfavorable.
A similar spread between right and left appears in many other countries. In Australia, Sweden, and Spain, between 94 and 96 percent of those who declare themselves on the left judge Israel unfavorably. In the Netherlands and Greece, the figure is 90 percent, in Italy 88, in France 86, and in Germany 85.
In any case, in all the countries, 24 out of 36, where a comparison with 2025 was possible, negative judgments on Israel have increased decidedly.
In Italy, for example, a year ago the negative judgments were 66 percent compared with 29 percent positive, while today the negative have risen to 75 percent and the positive have fallen to 21 percent. With a caveat : if the “very negative” and “very positive” judgments are isolated, the former have jumped from 37 to 48 percent, while the latter, already very low, have plummeted from 7 to 3.
If then, as the Pew Research Center did, the survey is focused on the judgments expressed not on Israel but on its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, more than half of those interviewed express a completely negative judgment of his conduct in international politics. This is what emerges in Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Here too with a greater presence of negative judgments among younger people and those who declare themselves on the left. And with a rise in negative judgments from 2025 to this year in 13 out of 24 countries where comparisons are possible, including Italy, Germany, and the United States.
There are only two countries where a little more than half of those interviewed expressed confidence in Netanyahu : Kenya and the Philippines.
In another survey published at the end of May and limited to the United States, the Pew Research Center also wanted to determine whether and how followers of various faiths who regularly attend religious services have recently heard their respective pastors speak on current political and social issues.
Among the issues surveyed were Israel and the U.S. war against Iran. And between a quarter and a third of those interviewed said yes, they had heard remarks on these issues.
Evangelical Protestants said that their pastors, when speaking about Israel, almost always expressed support, with very few remarks against.
And also among Catholics, more voices of support for Israel or of neutrality were heard than of condemnation.
Instead, those who heard about the U.S. war against Iran from the pulpit said they mostly heard critical voices.
For example, among the 30 percent of Catholics who had heard about it, only one in ten said they had heard voices in support of that war. The other voices were mostly opposed or neutral.
(Translated by Matthew Sherry : traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
As is the complete index of the blog www.chiesa, which preceded it.