Main Findings

• The Iran campaign has lost its aura of success: The share who view it as successful has fallen from two-thirds to one-third.
• Trump’s rating on Iran: The share rating his leadership as good fell to one-fifth in June before rebounding to one-third in July.
• Confidence in Netanyahu: A large majority of conservatives view his leadership as good, while most liberals rate it negatively.
• Most say the action against Iran did not go far enough — a view that strengthens as respondents move to the right.
• The United States as Israel’s “true friend”: One-fifth say it is a better friend than before, while one-third are unsure whether it is a true friend or say it definitely is not.
• More respondents than a year ago view Zohran Mamdani as both anti-Israel and antisemitic.
• Three-quarters of the respondent panel say Israel has not committed genocide in Gaza.
• In the midterms, 46% of the respondent panel plan to vote mostly Democratic, compared with 29% who plan to vote mostly Republican.
• Only 55% of the connected U.S. Jews surveyed say their religious leadership handles Israel-related issues well.
• The Interpersonal Trust Index rose, with a larger share agreeing that most people can be trusted.

To download a PDF version, click here.

The Iran War: From Perceived Success to a Sense of Failure

Iran has dominated the survey waves of recent months, and the trend is clear: The further the operation recedes, the less successful respondents believe it was. In March 2026, at its height, two-thirds (66%) of respondents viewed the campaign as a success. That share fell to 56% in April, 48% in May, and just 28% in June, when 70% viewed it as a failure. The results stabilized somewhat this month: 36% now consider the campaign a success, but a clear majority (61%) still view it negatively. In just four months, the overall picture has reversed.

The trend is evident in all three communities sampled, although its strength varies. Among Canadian respondents, the share viewing the campaign as a success fell from 70% in March to 40% in July; among UK respondents, it fell from 75% to 47%. The U.S. average the survey’s primary focus – masks one of the sample’s deepest divides, with political affiliation emerging as the key factor. Among strong liberals, 90% view the campaign as a failure, while three-quarters (76%) of strong conservatives still view it as a success. The divide is even sharper by 2024 vote: 71% of Trump voters see the campaign as a success, while 82% of Harris voters see it as a failure.

Although assessments of the war’s outcome have deteriorated, the majority’s view of the military action itself remains clearly positive. Among the connected U.S. Jews surveyed, 56% say the U.S. action against Iran “did not go far enough,” compared with 28% who say it “went too far” and just 5% who say it was “about right.” For many respondents, then, criticism of the campaign reflects not opposition to the use of force, but a belief that the force used was insufficiently decisive. This view is also pronounced in Canada (73%) and the UK (67%).

A breakdown by ideological orientation shows that 89% of strong conservative respondents and 88% of those who lean conservative favor a tougher approach toward Iran, while 60% of strong liberal respondents say the action went too far. When examined by voting pattern in the 2024 presidential election, the gap is even wider – 90% of Trump voters say the military action did not go far enough; by contrast, 44% of Harris voters say it went too far. Thus, the hawkish view shared by most respondents coexists with disappointment over the campaign’s results.

Confidence in Leaders

As assessments of the campaign declined, so did evaluations of President Trump’s leadership. Iran has become a major test of Trump’s leadership among connected U.S. Jews, and his standing on this issue fell rapidly. The share rating his leadership on Iran as “good” (very or somewhat good) declined from 46% in March to 40% in May and then to 21% in June. July brought a partial rebound to 32%, but a stable majority (62%) still regard his leadership in the Iran arena as poor. The decline is substantial: His positive rating fell by 14 percentage points over four months, and July recovered only part of that loss.

Political affiliation accounts for most of the variation in assessments of Trump’s leadership, underscoring how strongly views of the president track with partisan identity. Among strong conservative respondents, 87% rate him positively, as do 68% of those who lean conservative. Among strong liberal respondents, however, 87% rate his leadership as “very poor” and another 6% “somewhat poor.” Centrist respondents are split (40% good, 49% poor). The divide by 2024 vote is similarly stark: 80% of Trump voters rate his leadership positively, while 77% of Harris voters regard it as very poor.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership rating vis-à-vis Iran declined moderately but steadily throughout the survey period: The share rating his leadership as good fell from 53% in March to 41% in July, while 50% now rate his leadership as poor. Unlike Trump, Netanyahu did not experience a sudden collapse around the campaign; instead, his rating eroded gradually. Yet the overall average masks polarization even deeper than that surrounding Trump. Among the strong conservative cohort, two-thirds (67%) rate Netanyahu’s leadership as very good and 96% rate him positively overall, while 69% of the strong liberal cohort rate it as very poor.

The connected Canadian Jews surveyed rate Netanyahu’s leadership on Iran somewhat more positively than their U.S. counterparts (53% good), while the UK Jews surveyed more closely resemble U.S. respondents (50% positive). Over time, however, Netanyahu’s leadership rating has declined more sharply among Canadian Jews than among U.S. Jews.

The United States as a “True Friend”: Growing Ambivalence

Against the backdrop of tensions over Iran and the Trump administration’s policies, connected U.S. Jews are divided over the depth of the U.S. commitment to Israel. Nearly one-fifth (18%) say the United States is more of a true friend than it was in the past, and another 17% say it is as much a friend as before. By contrast, 28% say it is less of a friend than before, 27% are unsure it is a friend at all, and 7% say it is definitely not a friend. Taken together, 35% say the United States is either less of a friend than before or definitely not a friend. Here, too, ideological orientation is decisive: Half (50%) of the strong conservative cohort says the United States is a better friend than before, compared with just 5% in the strong liberal group.

A comparison between the Canadian and U.S. Jews surveyed reveals a striking gap: Canadian Jews are far more skeptical than their U.S. counterparts about their country’s commitment to Israel. Only 8% view Canada as a true friend (either more than before or as much as before), while a significant majority (74%) are unsure it is a friend or say it is definitely not one. Thus, while the U.S. debate centers on whether the United States is less friendly than before, the Canadian debate has shifted to whether Canada is a friend at all.

Despite disagreements over Trump’s leadership and the strength of the U.S.-Israel friendship, respondents show unusually broad agreement across ideological, denominational, and geographic cohorts on how Israel should manage relations with the U.S. administration. Large majorities (83% in the United States, 84% in Canada, and 92% in the UK) say Israel should seek to coordinate its policies with the administration but, when the two disagree, act according to what Israel believes is right. Only 6% support near-total compliance with the administration’s demands except in extreme circumstances, 5% say Israel needn’t ask the Americans’ opinion at all, and just 1% say Israel should always do as the administration wishes. This is a rare consensus in a survey otherwise marked by sharp divisions.

Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani’s tenure as mayor of New York City continues to command the attention of the U.S. Jewish community, and negative views of him have hardened over time. This month, 69% of U.S. respondents say he is both anti-Israel and antisemitic, up from 61% last July. Another 20% see him as anti-Israel but not antisemitic, while only 7% say he is neither. Meanwhile, the share unable to answer fell from 10% a year ago to just 4%, suggesting that Mamdani has become a familiar figure about whom respondents have formed a view.

Negative views span the political spectrum but intensify as respondents move toward the conservative end of the ideological spectrum: 94% of strong conservatives and 97% of Trump voters describe Mamdani as both antisemitic and anti-Israel, compared with 40% of strong liberals and 53% of Harris voters. Among strong liberals, 35% describe him as “anti-Israel but not antisemitic.”

Genocide Allegations in Gaza

Allegations of genocide against Israel in the Gaza war continue to appear in international media and on social media platforms. An AP-NORC survey published earlier this month found that 31% of all Americans and a nearly identical share of American Jews (30%) believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza. That survey examined American Jews as a whole, unlike the present survey of connected Jews. Just under half (49%) said Israel had not committed genocide in Gaza, while 21% said they did not know.

The overwhelming majority of connected U.S. Jews participating in JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People respondent panel reject the genocide allegation: 78% say Israel did not commit genocide, 14% say it did, and 8% say they do not know enough to express an opinion. The lower “don’t know” rate, compared with that in the representative AP-NORC sample, may also suggest greater familiarity with the issue among connected Jews. Here, too, a sharp ideological divide is evident – 36% of strong liberal respondents agree with the allegation, and only 53% reject it, compared with virtually no strong conservative respondents who agree. A similar divide appears by 2024 voting pattern: 22% of Harris voters agree, compared with virtually no Trump voters. Agreement is slightly lower in Canada and the United Kingdom than in the United States (13% and 11%, respectively).

Congressional Midterm Elections

Ahead of the fall midterm elections, 46% of the connected U.S. Jews surveyed intend to vote mostly for Democratic candidates, compared with 29% who intend to vote mostly for Republican candidates. Another 9% plan to split their vote, 14% remain undecided, and 2% do not intend to vote. The Democratic plurality reflects the American Jewish community’s historical voting pattern, but the overall figure masks a deep divide among religious denominations. While 67% of Reform respondents and 43% of Conservative respondents lean Democratic, 53% of Modern Orthodox Jews and 75% of Haredi Jews lean Republican. The gap underscores the close relationship between denominational affiliation and political orientation within the American Jewish community.

Religious Leadership in the United States

Building on the AP-NORC survey, this month we examined how connected Jews assess their religious leadership’s handling of Israel-related issues. The picture is mixed: 55% rate the performance positively (14% extremely well, 20% very well, and 21% somewhat well), while 22% rate it negatively. Particularly notable is the high “don’t know” share 23% suggesting that many respondents are unfamiliar with their religious leadership’s position on Israel or do not have such leadership. By comparison, only a small share of respondents in AP-NORC’s representative sample of U.S. Jews answered “don’t know.”

Satisfaction with religious leaders is highest among Modern Orthodox Jews (50% “extremely well” or “very well”) and lowest among those with no denominational affiliation, 44% of whom answered “don’t know.” An even sharper divide emerges by communal connection: Only 17% of respondents connected to the community answered “don’t know,” compared with 60% of those who are not connected. In other words, religious leadership shapes perceptions largely within the connected core and has little reach in the community’s more distant periphery.

The United Kingdom and France

The survey also examined developments in the UK and France. In the UK, amid expectations of a Labour leadership change, respondents were asked how the then-presumptive prime minister Andy Burnham would compare with his predecessor, Keir Starmer. The UK respondents surveyed are largely pessimistic: 61% expect Burnham to be worse than Starmer for UK-Israel relations, and 44% fear he would also be worse for Britain’s Jewish community. Among the U.S. respondents, by contrast, 56% did not know how to answer, indicating limited familiarity with Burnham. Among those who did express an opinion, concern outweighed optimism: 21% said he would be worse for relations with Israel, compared with 6% who said he would be better.

With the French presidential race already taking shape (the election is slated for April 18, 2027), three-quarters of respondents do not know which candidate would be best for France-Israel relations further evidence of limited familiarity with French politics. Overall, Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Rally is the clear preference: 14% say she would be best for relations with Israel, compared with single-digit shares for every other likely candidate. This view is concentrated among conservatives (35% of the strong conservative cohort) and Trump voters (38%) and is nearly absent among the two liberal cohorts.

Interpersonal Trust

In 1972, nearly half of Americans (46%) said that, in general, “most people” could be trusted. Five decades later, the question is the same, but trust has eroded from nearly one-half to roughly one-third. Pew researchers describe “social trust” as partly rooted in personal experience: People learn whether to trust others through the course of their lives. Negative experiences, such as losing a job or facing discrimination, can erode this trust, producing gaps by income and education. Against this backdrop of broad decline, it is particularly useful to examine where connected Jews stand and how their views change from year to year.

JPPI’s Interpersonal Trust Index focuses on connected U.S. Jews participants in the Voice of the Jewish People panel whose ties to the Jewish community, Israel, and Jewish identity are stronger than the average for all U.S. Jews. Among them, the share agreeing that “most people can be trusted” rose from 44% in July 2025 to 51% in July 2026, a gain of seven percentage points. To interpret this figure properly, it should be compared with two distinct reference groups: all U.S. adults and Israeli Jews, who are asked the identical question in JPPI’s Israeli Society Index. This comparison qualifies last year’s conclusion: The connected Jewish core in the United States does not exhibit exceptionally high trust. At 51%, it stands slightly below all U.S. adults (55% in Pew’s identically worded measure) and below Israeli Jews (59%), although the seven-point increase narrows both gaps.

Two caveats are important. The first concerns wording, which has a decisive effect. The comparison figure of 55% among all U.S. adults comes from a 2025 Pew Research Center survey whose binary wording (“can be trusted” versus “cannot be trusted”) matches ours. By contrast, the historical GSS/NORC measure uses different wording (“can be trusted … or you can’t be too careful”) and yields much lower rates – reflecting a decline from 46% in 1972 to about 34% today. Using that measure for comparison purposes last year made the connected Jewish core appear more trusting than average; the like-for-like comparison now yields the opposite picture. The second caveat is that our sample consists of connected Jews, not a representative sample of all U.S. Jews. A representative survey could produce a different result, so the 51% should be understood as applying to the connected Jews JPPI surveys, not to American Jewry as a whole.

A direct comparison between connected U.S. Jews and Israeli Jews, based on identical questions, reveals a surprising pattern. Although Israeli Jews are more likely to trust most people (59% compared with 51%), connected U.S. Jews are more likely than Israeli Jews themselves to trust Israelis and Israeli Jews: 74% trust “most Israelis” and 75% trust “most Jews in Israel,” compared with 68% and 70%, respectively, among Israeli Jews. In other words, distance may enhance trust Diaspora Jews’ attachment to Israel is accompanied by greater trust than that expressed by those living there.

The pattern of Jewish in-group affinity – substantially greater trust in Jews than in people generally – also extends beyond the United States. Eighty-three percent of Canadian Jews trust most Canadian Jews, and a similar pattern appears in Britain, suggesting that the collective sense of belonging among connected Jews transcends national boundaries. The same pattern appears in Israel, where the share expressing trust rises from 59% for “most people” to 70% for “most Jews in Israel.” There, however, it is accompanied by a stark external divide: Only 26% of Israeli Jews trust most Arab citizens of Israel, one of the lowest figures in the index.

Survey Data and Implications

This report is based on a survey of 696 U.S. Jews registered for JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People respondent panel, conducted July 15-19, 2026. The survey primarily reflects the views of “connected” Jews those with relatively strong ties to the Jewish community, Israel, and/or Jewish identity. The survey also included 112 Canadian respondents and 36 UK respondents. Unless otherwise noted, the results reflect U.S. respondents only; the UK findings should be interpreted with caution due to the small sample. JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People Index surveys are conducted by JPPI fellows Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov, with assistance from Yael Levinovsky and statistical oversight by Prof. David Steinberg.

The post JPPI’s Voice of the Jewish People Index for July 2026: 69% View Mamdani as Both Anti-Israel and Antisemitic first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The post Newsletter 22.7.26 first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Any graduate of a respectable Israeli kindergarten has learned that the Second Temple was destroyed “because of baseless hatred.” Every adult Israeli knows to warn against its recurrence in our time. But history tells a different story. The destruction of the Second Temple – followed some 60 years later by the near-destruction of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel after the Bar Kokhba revolt was crushed – resulted chiefly from nationalist and religious zealotry. Then as now, this fanaticism imperils the Jewish state.

When the extremes set the terms of public discourse – and, more dangerously, of politics – they can bring renewed Jewish sovereignty to an end. Only the determination of a moderate majority, committed to the broadest possible common ground, can safeguard and strengthen Israel as it approaches its centennial.

The destruction of the Second Temple, the devastation of Jewish life in the Land of Israel, and the onset of 2,000 years of exile are well-documented historical events. Like every major historical event, there wasn’t a single cause. Still, if we distill the factors that ultimately produced the catastrophe from the multitude of surviving sources, two stand out: the collapse of internal Jewish governance and the religious and nationalist zealotry that eroded it.

These forces drove the process, made the destruction possible, and greatly accelerated it. The burning of one another’s food stores in Jerusalem by extremists from rival camps is the starkest symbol of their conduct over many years. Had we interviewed them, they would have insisted that nothing they did was “baseless.” Like rigid ideologues everywhere, each possessed a coherent worldview that drove them to fanaticism, civil war, and blindness to external threats.

The parallels with Israel on Tisha B’Av 5786 are frightening. Israelis plainly fear that cohesion is eroding and society is unraveling. According to JPPI’s Israeli Society Index, 55 percent of Israelis consider internal division the gravest threat facing the country, compared with 23% who cite the Iranian threat. No less than 80% are worried about Israel’s social condition. The good news is that most Israelis also believe that “on the issues that matter, most Israelis agree with one another.” In other words, at the heart of Israeli society is a broad public that regards our deepest disputes as solvable.

But today, too, the zealots are the problem. Across every hard issue dividing Israeli society – in foreign affairs and public policy, but above all in domestic disputes – extremists will do everything they can to thwart compromise or accommodation. The battle over the judiciary is a glaring example; it has already dragged us toward the abyss of civil war. Legal experts and experienced politicians know full well that compromise and solutions are possible – and could have been reached throughout the past several years. It was fanatics on both the right and the left who were prepared to “die” over every last jot and tittle.

Another example is Israeli policy in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Everyone familiar with the issue understands that the far right’s tacit backing of Jewish terrorism could cost Israel dangerously international isolation. Yet here, too, the zealots set the tone. And all this while the enemy is at the gates and Israel is fighting on seven fronts.

Just as Yom Kippur is the appointed time for personal self-examination, Tisha B’Av is the occasion for social and national reckoning. On the day when, twice in our history, Jewish sovereignty was lost, we Israelis should gather in the shadow of mourning and fasting to take stock of our national life. We must look into the mirror of both distant and recent history, recognize the terrible consequences of burning our storehouses – literal and symbolic – and choose a worthy path. This is not a call for bland centrism. It is a call to reject fanatical extremists and choose a national life grounded in fellowship and in a renewed emphasis on what unites us.

Published in TOI

The post Zealotry – not baseless hatred – will lead to Israel’s collapse first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

According to a well-known folk tale, Napoleon once passed a synagogue on Tisha B’Av and was surprised to hear weeping and lamentation. When he learned that the mourners were grieving the destruction of the Temple two thousand years earlier, he reportedly said, with awe, that a people capable of weeping over so ancient a loss would one day rebuild what it had lost. In this legend, memory is a force for renewal.

But this year, on Tisha B’Av 5786, we must fear that we have forgotten. We will fast and observe the customs of our national day of mourning. We will go through the motions, yet the conclusion is unavoidable: we have forgotten.

Jewish tradition attributes the loss of sovereignty in our two previous commonwealths to the hatred within us, which ate away at the Jews’ ability to withstand their enemies. The burning of Jerusalem’s granaries while the enemy besieged the city remains the starkest symbol of the madness to which fraternal hatred can lead. Today, too, we risk setting fire to the granaries of sovereignty – undermining the rule of law, eroding trust in state institutions, and weakening governance – once again, while at war with our enemies.

According to a recent JPPI survey, a majority of Israelis (55%) believe that the greatest threat to our future lies not beyond the country’s borders – in security threats and global antisemitism – but within us. In their view, the chief danger comes not from Khamenei or Mamdani, but from the choices and actions inside our shared home. That intuition is not unfounded, but it requires precision:

The danger does not stem from disagreement itself, but from the way we manage it. Public life has become an arena for a “zero-sum game”: either I prevail or I am defeated. Each camp is thoroughly convinced that the other’s victory would make our shared home unlivable. This apocalyptic reading of reality – to which many have become addicted – is fertile ground for fanaticism. And fanaticism, as Jewish history teaches, is the true battering ram against the walls of sovereignty.

Disagreement is not a defect to be corrected; it is an inseparable part of a living society. The real question is whether we can disagree without negating the legitimacy of the other side, without turning it into an enemy to be crushed. This requires empathy – not agreement. Empathy means recognizing that those who think differently from us also act from a worldview, a set of values, and a sincere concern for the country’s future. Try a painful exercise: If you vote on the left, are you prepared to say that Bezalel Smotrich may be wrong, but seeks the good no less than you do? If you vote on the right, can you say the same of Yair Golan? My guess is that each side is offended by the very comparison. And that is precisely the problem.

Empathy alone, however, is not enough. A polarized society needs agreed-upon rules of the game for managing its disputes. Israel needs a “thin constitution” – a basic constitutional framework that would establish a durable consensus on how public life is conducted. Had such a framework been in place, it would have blocked the kind of sweeping constitutional overhaul attempted by the outgoing coalition. It would likewise dispel the mirror-image fear that, if today’s opposition wins the next election, it will impose an overhaul – a political revolution – of its own.

In the absence of agreed-upon rules for managing disagreement, each side fears that if it does not vanquish the other today, it will be trounced tomorrow. That fear creates a vicious cycle in which each camp uses its power to remake reality unilaterally in its own image – and in doing so assails the walls of Jerusalem in our generation.

The three weeks between the Seventeenth of Tammuz, when the walls of Jerusalem were breached, and Tisha B’Av, when the Temple was destroyed, are known as Bein HaMetzarim – “Between the Straits.” The phrase comes from the Book of Lamentations (1:3): “All her pursuers overtook her in the straits.” How tragic that the pursuers threatening our future, then as now, are ourselves. Will we know how to remember what fanaticism wrought in earlier generations and break the curse?

After the election, we can begin repairing the damage by binding ourselves to entrenched rules for managing our disagreements – a “thin constitution.”

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post Between the Straits: The Danger Within first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Additional Findings

• Erosion in relations with Washington: the share expressing a great deal of confidence in Trump fell from 34% in March to 7% in July.
• Opposition to the agreement with Iran: the share of Jewish Israelis viewing the agreement as very bad jumped from 40% to 68%.
• On the right, 48% believe that the United States is more of a true friend to Israel today than in recent years; on the left, 54% say less so.
• A majority (63%) believes the agreement with Lebanon is good for Israel.
• Gaza continues to divide: 68% on the right favor a return to combat; in all other ideological cohorts, majorities favor an economic-diplomatic path.
• The sense of victory in the war has eroded from 54% to 38% in the last year.
• Confidence in the government is lower than it has been in over a year (37%); among secular respondents, only 19%.
• Erosion of trust in the IDF’s senior command: 71% of Jewish Israelis trust it, compared with 82% in March.
• Haredi conscription: 46% support additional sanctions and pressure; among the Haredi public, only 9% disapprove of the recent road-blocking protests.
• Ahead of the elections: 53% say they are completely certain whom they will vote for; the center-right and centrist cohorts have the highest share of undecided voters.
• A significant gap in identifying the central election issue: relations between the government and the judiciary versus advancing Israel as a more liberal state.
• The annual index of trust in other people: a slight increase in Jews’ trust in Arabs (from 22% to 26%) over last year.

To download a PDF version, click here.

Confidence in Trump at a Low Point

Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, Israelis have frequently been asked how confident they are that the U.S. president will “do the right thing” with respect to U.S.-Israel relations. The July survey recorded the lowest confidence levels since measurement began: only 7% of Israelis have a great deal of confidence in Trump, 41% express some confidence, and 45% say they have no confidence. By comparison, in January 2025, when he entered office, 32% of Israelis had a great deal of confidence in him, and only 21% said they had no confidence in him.

The current decline is especially sharp against the background that only four months ago, in March 2026, at the beginning of the war with Iran, the share expressing a great deal of confidence in Trump reached a peak of 34%. The events that followed the war, including the agreement signed with Iran and various statements by the president, led the Israeli public to gradually but consistently lose confidence in him: 19% in April, 21% in May, 12% in June, and 7% this month. Among Jewish Israelis, the picture is even sharper: only 5% now express a great deal of confidence, while 46% have no confidence in him at all. Among Arab Israelis, a higher share has a great deal of confidence in the president (15%) – presumably for the opposite reasons, against the backdrop of satisfaction with the end of the war.

Although disappointment with Trump cuts across camps, an ideological breakdown reveals clear differences in attitudes toward him. Among those who self-identify as right-wing, a majority continue to have some level of confidence in the American president (8% a great deal and 56% some, compared with 30% no confidence). Nevertheless, compared with last July, not long after the 12-day war with Iran, the change among right-wing Jewish Israelis is clear: exactly one year ago, 29% of the right expressed a great deal of confidence in Trump and only 14% had no confidence in him. Today the ratio has almost reversed. Moving leftward along the ideological spectrum, confidence in the president diminishes. In the center, 58% have no confidence in Trump; in the center-left, 74%; and on the left, 62%; in the latter two cohorts, no respondent expresses a great deal of confidence in the president. Similarly, a breakdown by religiosity also reveals a marked gap: among secular Jews, 56% have no confidence in the president, whereas among Haredim, 27% have no confidence in him and almost two-thirds of Haredi respondents (64%) maintain some confidence in Trump. Likud voters (in the 2022 elections) maintain the highest level of confidence in Trump (15% a great deal and another 58% some); among voters for the center and left parties, the share expressing no confidence ranges from 58% (National Unity) to 77% (Meretz).

Is the United States a True Friend of Israel?

Three in four Israelis (74%) view the United States as a true friend of Israel – but behind this agreement lies a significant dispute over relations between the two countries. In fact, the public is divided almost equally among those who believe that today the United States is a friend of Israel more than in recent years (27%), as it has been in recent years (21%), and less than in recent years (26%). Another fifth of respondents (20%) are not at all certain that it is a true friend, and 4% are certain that it is not a true friend.

An ideological breakdown reveals an almost perfect right-left mirror image: on the right, nearly half of respondents (48%) believe that the United States is a stronger friend now than in recent years. By contrast, among the much smaller cohort of left-wing respondents, no one thinks so (0%); instead, a majority (54%) say that the United States is less of a friend of Israel today than in the past, and another 42% question the friendship itself. The same diplomatic reality is read in diametrically opposite ways in the two camps a finding that corresponds to the gap concerning confidence in Trump. A similar pattern emerges by religiosity: 48% of Haredim view the friendship as strengthening, compared with only 14% of secular Jews. Among Shas and Likud voters (in the 2022 elections), a majority or near-majority believe that the friendship has strengthened (64% and 53%, respectively); among Yesh Atid voters, only 2% do so.

How should Israel conduct its relations with the American administration? There is broad agreement in Israel: two-thirds of Israelis (66%) and three-quarters of Jewish Israelis (77%) choose the middle position: Israel should try to coordinate with the administration, but if there is disagreement, it should do what it considers right. This position is the majority view across Jewish ideological camps, from the right (81%) and center-right (86%) to the left (54%). Only 6% believe Israel should always accede to U.S. demands, and 6% believe there is no need to ask the Americans at all what Israel should do. A notable difference on this issue exists between Jews and Arabs: about half of Arab Israelis (47%) believe that Israel should accede to Washington – either always (24%) or in extreme situations (23%).

The Iran Agreement

Last month, when the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran was taking shape but had not yet been signed, we found that 55% of Israelis were concerned about it. This month, after the signing, it emerges that reservations have not merely failed to moderate they have intensified considerably: 68% of Israelis now believe the agreement is bad for Israel (12% somewhat bad and 56% very bad), compared with 14% who believe it is good and 17% who think it is still too early to know whether the agreement is good or bad. The share choosing the emphatic position, ‘very bad for Israel,’ jumped within one month from 34% to 56% among the public as a whole, and from 40% to 68% among Jews. At the same time, the share waiting to see (too early to tell) shrank from 22% to 17%. In other words, as the details of the agreement become clearer, skeptics are joining the camp that rejects it.

Opposition is rife across Jewish ideological cohorts: the share choosing very bad ranges narrowly from 65% on the right and center-right to 75% on the left. It is also predominant among all Jewish religious cohorts from secular Jews (69%) to Haredim (73%) the negative assessment is similar. Cross-camp agreement is also evident when the public is examined by voting pattern: a majority rejecting the agreement is recorded among voters for all Jewish parties, from Likud (72%) and Religious Zionism (89%) to Labor (91%) and Meretz (81%). The reverse picture holds in the Arab sector, where 57% believe the agreement is good for Israel; among Hadash-Ta’al-Balad voters, the figure is 72%. It is worth noting that not a single Jewish respondent not one chose the option that the agreement is very good for Israel.

The Agreement with Lebanon

In contrast to the agreement with Iran, the agreement with Lebanon enjoys broad support: close to two-thirds of Israelis (63%) believe it is good for Israel (30% very good and 33% somewhat good), and only 18% believe it is not good for Israel. Jews and Arabs alike share this positive assessment (63% and 64%, respectively) a rare concordance between the sectors. The ideological breakdown, which on diplomatic-security issues usually displays a sharp gradient, is almost flat here. Majorities in every cohort regard the agreement as good for Israel: on the right (68%), center-right (63%), center (54%), center-left (57%), and left (62%). In other words, the same camps that are united in opposition to the agreement with Iran are united in favor of the agreement with Lebanon.

Gaza

Whereas there is considerable agreement regarding Iran and Lebanon, the Gaza front continues to divide the Israeli public along familiar lines. The largest share of Israelis (43%) prefers trying to weaken Hamas through economic and diplomatic measures, but more than one-third (35%) prefer returning to fighting until the stated objectives are achieved (without Hamas rule), and a minority (14%) believes that the current situation is reasonable and should be maintained. The Jewish public is divided into two camps: half (50%) support an economic-diplomatic path, and four in ten (41%) support a return to fighting. In the Arab sector, half (51%) prefer maintaining the current situation.

The ideological gradient remains as sharp as ever: on the right, a clear majority (68%) supports a return to fighting; in the center-right, the balance already tilts the other way (55% favor economic weakening versus 40% fighting); and in the center, center-left, and left, overwhelming majorities 70%, 90%, and 92%, respectively – prefer the economic-diplomatic track, with no one on the left supporting a return to fighting.

A Year of Erosion

As in past months, we again examined the extent to which Israelis feel that Israel is winning or has won the war that began on October 7, 2023, across all fronts. This month, 38% express a sense of victory (a rating of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale), 41% do not feel that way (a rating of 1 or 2), and 21% are in the middle – figures similar to those recorded in May and June. Israelis’ sense of achievement and victory naturally depends on developments on the ground: periods of fighting and of calm, and feelings of achievement or missed opportunity. A month-to-month view may be volatile, whereas a look back over a year allows the current findings to be anchored against an earlier point. In July 2025, exactly one year ago, 54% of Israelis felt that Israel was winning and only 22% rejected that view. That was the outcome of Operation Rising Lion. This month the picture has almost reversed. This is the outcome of Operation Lion’s Roar and what followed it. The positive peak in the sense of victory recorded in March 2026, during the operation (56%), has been entirely eroded.

The sense of victory is deeply affected by respondents’ location on the ideological scale. On the right, 74% feel a sense of victory; on the left, 71% choose not at all, and no one chooses the high ratings. By religiosity, Haredim stand out for their positive assessment of Israel’s achievements: 81% expressed a sense of victory, compared with 23% of secular Jews. Comparing the breakdowns with July 2025 data reveals that the annual erosion in the sense of victory occurred almost entirely outside the right-wing group, where the sentiment barely changed (77% last year). By contrast, among those who define themselves as center, the sense of victory fell from 37% to 14%.

Confidence in the Government and the IDF

Thirty-seven percent of Israelis trust the government (15% very much and 22% somewhat), while 62% do not trust it including 48% who chose the emphatic option of no trust at all. This is the lowest level of confidence measured since May 2025, following a prolonged period in which confidence ranged between 38% and 45%. The polarization regarding confidence in the government is predictable and sharp: on the right, three-quarters (77%) trust it; in the center-right, 43%; in the center, only 9%; and in the center-left and left, zero, with 100% of left-wing respondents choosing no trust at all. The breakdown by religiosity is no less interesting, with a gap almost as deep: three-quarters of Haredim (75%) trust the government, compared with only one-fifth of secular Jews (19%), 75% of whom do not trust it at all.

Two-thirds of Israelis (66%) trust the IDF’s senior command a figure much higher than the level of trust in the government, one that reflects some erosion, nonetheless. Among Jewish Israelis, the share of respondents who trust the IDF command fell from 82% in March (the onset of the Iran war) to 79% in April, 75% in May, and 71% this month – eight points below the level measured in July 2025 (79%). The intensity of confidence is also relatively low: only 11% of Jewish Israelis trust the senior command very much, while the majority choose the more qualified option, trust somewhat. Unlike the case of confidence in the government, trust in the IDF leadership is highest in the center of the map – 82% in the center and 79% in the center-left, compared with 66% on the right and 62% on the left. In the Arab sector, 42% trust the senior command.

The Haredim: Protests and Conscription

Against the backdrop of traffic-blocking Haredi protests on Israeli roads against the arrests of draft evaders, this month we presented respondents with three positions that are commonly heard in the public discourse. The position that received the highest level of agreement (39%) was: these are unjustified protests that should be prevented.

Almost one-third (32%) chose another position, which entails a degree of tolerance: during the protests against the judicial reform, it was permissible to block roads; therefore, the Haredim may do so as well. This logic of reciprocity, and therefore of the protests’ legitimacy, is especially common among Israelis who identify as right-wing (48%) and among Likud voters (51%). Among the public as a whole, only 11% chose the option stating that the protests are justified in themselves and that attempts to conscript Haredim by force should stop. The religiosity breakdown shown in the table indicates significant gaps: among secular Jews, a majority (53%) rejects the protests, a share that declines as religiosity rises; among the Haredi public itself, only 9% reject them, 42% justify them based on reciprocity, and one-third (33%) believe they are justified and that forced conscription should stop.

As for conscription policy itself: close to half of Israelis (46%) and half of Jews (50%) believe that it is possible to conscript young Haredi men and that additional sanctions and pressure should be applied. About one-third (31%) prefer conscription only by agreement with the Haredi leadership, and 11% believe there is no chance of conscripting young Haredi men into the IDF and that attempts to do so should stop. The political gradient in responses to this question is fairly predictable: the demand for sanctions predominates in the center and the left (73% to 79%), whereas a majority (59%) on the right prefers the agreement track a pattern that, among other things, reflects the price of coalition partnership. Among Haredi respondents, 36% say there is no chance of conscription, but notably, 45% acknowledge that Haredim can be conscripted by agreement with the leadership and 15% even support sanctions. Among voters, most of whom self-identify as right-wing, there is a striking gap between Likud supporters (75% favor the agreement track) and Yisrael Beiteinu supporters (84% favor sanctions).

Political Positioning

We also examine from time to time the detailed political scale of nine categories, from far right to far left. Such a scale makes it possible to detect smaller movements in ideological positions than the three- or five-point scales we use in most cases (right, center-right, center, center-left, left). Compared with July 2025, there is a slight strengthening of the right and the center in the Jewish sector at the expense of the left: 66% of Jewish Israelis place themselves in one of the four right-wing categories (63% last year), 13% exactly in the center (10% last year), and 19% in one of the left-wing categories (22% last year). It is worth noting that the Jewish left is concentrated close to the center: the categories left and far left are almost empty (3% and 0%). In the Arab sector, half place themselves on the left (47% last year), but the noteworthy change is the decline in the share of those who do not find themselves anywhere on the scale – from 21% to 15% perhaps an early sign of political deliberation ahead of the elections.

Ahead of the Elections

Ahead of the elections expected in the fall, we examined a series of questions about the state of the campaign. The first finding: the campaign may only be beginning, but most voters have already decided what their choice will be. More than half (53%) say, yes I am already completely certain whom I will vote for, and another 29% say they are fairly certain. Fourteen percent report that they are still undecided, and 4% say they do not intend to vote. The highest level of decisiveness is recorded at the ends of the spectrum: 71% on the left and 58% on the right are already certain for whom they will vote, while the undecided are concentrated in the middle of the political map. In the center-right, 22% are still waiting to see all the parties, and in the center only 44% are completely certain about their vote. In other words, the real battlefield of the campaign is concentrated in the center of the map. Another indication: among those considering voting for a hypothetical party between the blocs, only 16% are completely certain of their choice.

What coalition do Israelis want after the elections? No formula receives a majority, but the option with the highest support is a coalition of the change bloc including Arabs (27%). Coalitions of the right bloc – either in its current composition or with the addition of a center party together receive 30%, and the three variations of a broad coalition from both blocs together receive 29%. The ideological breakdown shown in the table outlines the boundaries of the next coalition negotiations, at least as voters see them today (the election results may of course change their views): on the right, 68% want a coalition of the right bloc; in the center-left and left, large majorities (73% and 75%) prefer the option of the change bloc including Arabs; the middle is divided: in the center-right, the most common option is a broad coalition without Haredim and without Arabs (29%), while in the center 35% choose the change bloc including Arabs and 18% choose it without them. It is noteworthy that among prospective Likud voters, 42% prefer specifically a right-wing bloc with the addition of a party from the center a hint of some fatigue with the current composition even within Likud’s base.

And what is the main issue that will determine how Israelis vote? The most common issue is security: 28% of Israelis say the decisive consideration for them is who will contribute most effectively to maintaining security. It is followed by relations between the government and the judicial system (18%), advancing Israel as a more liberal state (15%), and more unity and fewer disputes (13%). Yet this order of priorities is an average of two entirely different election campaigns taking place simultaneously: on the right, security (40%) and government-judiciary relations (30%) lead; in the center, center-left, and left, the leading issue is a more liberal state (35%-38%). In the Arab sector, security (34%) and the economy (26%) lead – whereas the economy barely appears as a decisive consideration in the Jewish sector (5%).

A parallel examination of the two questions the one concerning the main issue in the election campaign and the one concerning the preferred coalition after the elections yields several interesting findings. Relations between the government and the judiciary form the main connective tissue of the right-wing bloc, more than the security issue. Seventy percent of those for whom this is the decisive issue prefer a clearly right-wing coalition (41% as today plus 29% with a center addition). In the opposite direction: among those who want a right-wing coalition as today, 49% chose the judicial issue as the decisive issue for them, more than security (32%).

Voters for whom security is the central election issue are the only group truly split in their coalition preference: 42% choose a right-wing coalition, while 40% prefer possible centrist or change-bloc coalition options. But this finding is, at least in part, a sectoral effect: the 18% who want the change bloc including Arabs come mainly from Arab respondents (for whom security is the leading issue). Among Jews only, security voters lean much more sharply rightward: 53% want a right-wing coalition, and only 8% of them want a coalition of the change bloc including Arabs. Choosing a liberal state as the central issue of the election campaign is a perfect mirror image of coalition preference. Eighty-three percent of those who cited this issue as central chose a coalition without Haredim. Only 2% of them chose a coalition of the right-wing bloc.

Interpersonal Trust

Once a year we examine Israelis’ interpersonal trust index, using a series of questions identical to those asked in July 2025 – and similar to questions also examined in international indices in various countries.

The overall picture, as the table shows, is one of stability in responses with a slight tendency toward improvement on all four items. The most noteworthy change even if moderate concerns the most sensitive item, trust in Arabs in Israel: 28% of Israelis believe that they can be trusted, compared with 24% last year; among Jews, this share rose from 22% to 26%. Nevertheless, this remains by far the lowest figure on the list.

Comparing the breakdowns with July 2025 data shows that this increase is not distributed evenly. At the right end of the map, nothing has moved: 6% of the right believed a year ago that most Arabs in Israel can be trusted, and 6% believe so today. The entire movement occurred in the center of the map and to its left: in the center-right, the share doubled from 15% to 31%; in the center it rose from 30% to 40%; and on the left – from 50% to 62%. A similar picture emerges by religiosity: among religious Jews, trust doubled from 7% to 15%, and among secular Jews it rose from 33% to 39%, while among the Haredi public it remained negligible (3%, compared with 5% last year). The only exception in the opposite direction is among traditionalist (Masorti)-religious Jews, where a decline was recorded (from 33% to 26%).

Another finding consistent with last year: the Arab sector is much more distrustful of people than the Jewish sector, and the positive movement recorded on the Jewish side is not reciprocal. Only 20% of Arabs believe that most people can be trusted (unchanged from last year), and similar shares (21%) say this about most Israelis and most Jews in Israel with trust in most Jews even declining slightly, from 24% to 21%. Only 35% of Arab respondents say that most other Arab Israelis can be trusted; nevertheless, this is the only item on which trust in the Arab sector is higher than in the Jewish sector, and it too has risen slightly (32% last year).

We present an international comparison by inserting the data obtained in our survey alongside surveys conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center, which collected data in many countries. Pew’s Global Attitudes Survey is from spring 2025 (and in the United States: February 2025). The highlighted Israeli data is from July 2026. Caution should be exercised in drawing conclusions due to methodological differences: Pew’s surveys were conducted by telephone or face-to-face, whereas the Israeli Society Index survey was conducted online. In the international comparison, one can identify the large gap between Jews and Arabs in Israel, which helps explain Israel’s overall position in the ranking.

The remaining percentages are don’t know responses.

Data for JPPI’s July Israeli Society Index was collected between July 1 and July 5, 2026, from 772 respondents via theMadad.com (568 Jewish sector respondents), and Afkar Research (204 Arab sector respondents, approximately half online and half by telephone). The data was weighted and analyzed by voting and religiosity to represent the views of Israel’s adult population. Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov compile the JPPI Israeli Society Index, with research, production, and writing assistance from Yael Levinovsky. Prof. David Steinberg provides statistical supervision.

The post JPPI Israeli Society Index – July 2026: Confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump Is at a Low Point first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Are you a “Zionist”? Most Jews in Israel would answer with a resounding “yes.” Afterward, if we asked them what exactly that means, it isn’t certain they’d have a good answer. Truly, what is a Zionist? Zionism was a movement with a singular goal: to establish a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. That goal was achieved. Now, one can suggest at least three paths forward. First: the goal was achieved, and therefore there is no longer a need for “Zionism.” Second: the goal was achieved, but it requires ongoing maintenance, and supporting the prosperity of the national home of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel is “Zionism” in our times. Third: the goal was achieved, and therefore Zionism has changed its face, and now has a different objective or definition. What is this new definition? That, of course, is up for debate.

Either way, it is clear there is good reason to ponder what “Zionism” means, and perhaps consequently, the question of “Am I a Zionist?” Most of us are too sloppy or lazy to give a serious, methodical answer to this question. Therefore, for most of us, the almost automatic declaration of “I am a Zionist” is a gesture of sentiment more than an ideological stance. We are Zionists because we assume, largely correctly, that those who call themselves Zionists are on our side, and those who say they aren’t are against us.

Now we ask: Is this true? We can provide a rather nontrivial answer to this question when we examine recent surveys of Jews in the United States. Let’s look at two surveys. One is the JPPI Voice of the Jewish People Index, which samples a group of “connected” Jews. The second, from last week, is by NORC in partnership with the AP. This is a survey conducted among all Americans, but it includes a particularly large group (about 1,200) of American Jews, representing the broader spectrum of connected, less connected and even highly disconnected U.S. Jews.

The JPPI survey focuses on connected Jews, which guarantees in advance that there will be relatively few Jews holding a negative sentiment toward Zionism. But the survey asked not only the “are you a Zionist” question, but also whether “your Jewish friends” are Zionists. This is a question where to some extent, the “connectedness” bias becomes less pronounced. When connected Jews testify about friends, some of whom might be connected but others likely are not, we can see the difference. While 72% of connected Jews say “I am a Zionist,” only 43% say “most of my Jewish friends are Zionists.” Another 29% say their friends are “somewhat Zionist.” And this data point inches closer to the numbers seen in the NORC survey of all U.S. Jews. In that poll, 23% of Jews, less than a quarter, say the term “Zionist” describes their position very accurately (13%) or accurately (10%).

If they aren’t Zionists, are they antizionists? It turns out most of them aren’t; a fifth of Jews say the label “antizionist” suits them to some degree. And yet, against that one-fifth stand another four-fifths, eight out of ten Jews, for whom “antizionist” does not fit either.

Here we return to our original question: Is someone who doesn’t feel “Zionist” probably against us? And now we will answer explicitly: No. The Jews of America prove it. On one hand, many of them do not want to apply the “Zionist” label to themselves. On the other hand, few apply the “antizionist” label to themselves. If so, what are these Jews? The NORC survey offered a third definiton. It is good that it did, because we can learn quite a bit from it. It offered not only “Zionist” and “antizonist” (each in a separate question), it also offered “supporter of Israel as a Jewish state.” Meaning, not the familiar brand “Zionist,” but an explicit statement about Israel.

Seventy-three percent of Jews say they “support Israel as a Jewish state.” Half of them said this statement describes their position very well or well. Another 23% said “quite well.” Only 16% said no (11% didn’t know how to answer). Here, we have answered the question: A vast number of Jews who do not want to wear the “Zionist” garment support “Israel as a Jewish state.” Relatively few Jews do not support “Israel as a Jewish state.”

From this, a few conclusions. First: we can calm down. A large majority of U.S. Jews still support “Israel as a Jewish state.” The loud voices we hear, heralding a supposed sea change – that American Jews have turned hostile to Israel – are fringe voices that receive an echo vastly exaggerated in proportion to their real power. Second: the Zionism brand is in trouble, and it needs to be handled in one of two ways. One option is to simply abandon it. Sometimes a brand undergoes a semantic shift that is pointless to try and stop. We can switch to using a different word. A second option is to fight for it, which requires clarifying, teaching, and embedding its meaning. Do you want to convince Jews, and the world, that Zionism is a cause worth supporting? Explain what “Zionism” is, and perhaps it will turn out that the world is actually on our side.

Something I wrote in Hebrew

We found that Israelis are still able to agree with one another. Here’s what I wrote:

There is a consensus on two very important matters. The (bad) agreement with Iran is a significant issue; we must consider its implications and prepare for its consequences. The encouraging (calling it “good” seems a bit of a stretch to me) agreement with Lebanon is also a significant issue, one worth drawing a measure of optimism from in light of otherwise bleak regional developments. But even more than the consensus itself, what is encouraging is the pragmatism of the Israelis examining these two agreements. It is encouraging to see their ability to judge these deals on their actual merits, rather than on the identity of the politician who failed at them (yes, Netanyahu), or succeeded at them (yes, also Netanyahu).

Published in the Jewish Journal

The post Can You Be a Zionist Without Zionism? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

In this conversation with The Jerusalem Post’s Jacob Laznik, Horvitz breaks with the alarmist consensus taking hold among Israeli decision-makers. He argues that Ankara “is not Abu Dhabi, but not Tehran either”, a pragmatic actor Washington and Jerusalem still have real leverage over, from NATO corridors to the quiet air-force deconfliction seen over Syria. On the F-35 fight, he notes that Israeli officials themselves frame the sale as “very bad, but not a disaster,” and warns against turning a manageable disagreement into a public rupture with Israel’s indispensable ally. On Gaza, he’s blunt: Hamas’s move to disband its emergency committee is “only a charade,” and the group will never surrender its weapons without military force.

What makes this perspective unusual is the source. Horvitz spent years at the center of Israel’s campaigns against Hezbollah and Iran, and he’s now warning that pattern-matching Turkey onto the Iran template is a strategic error, one that could push Israel toward a confrontation that disciplined competition could still avoid. It’s a rare inside-the-tent argument for restraint on one front so Israel can concentrate on the threats that matter most: Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile, a demilitarized Hezbollah, and the dismantling of Hamas.

The post Podcast: Is Turkey with F-35 capabilities too big of a threat for Israel to accept? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Europe is discovering what Israel has long known: extreme heat is no longer an occasional emergency. It is becoming part of the continent’s new normal.

The recent heat dome that swept across the continent pushed temperatures to record levels, strained electricity grids, disrupted transport, and forced governments to issue public health warnings. Meteorologists warn that more major heat events are likely to follow. What was once exceptional is rapidly becoming routine.

For decades, European climate policy focused primarily on slowing global warming. The Green Deal became the European Union’s (EU) flagship project for reducing emissions and achieving climate neutrality. Those ambitions remain essential. But Europe now faces an equally urgent challenge. It must also learn how to adapt to a hotter world.

That challenge creates an opportunity to rethink one dimension of the relationship between Israel and the EU.

The conversation between Brussels and Jerusalem is usually dominated by disagreements over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wider regional politics. Those disagreements will continue.

Climate adaptation, however, offers a different agenda, one driven not by political division but by shared necessity. Extreme heat does not recognize borders or ideology. It tests farmers, physicians, engineers, urban planners, and governments alike.

This is where science diplomacy should take center stage.

Israel has spent generations building a modern state under conditions of chronic heat, scarce water, and recurring drought. Meeting those challenges required sustained investment in scientific research, technological innovation, and close cooperation among universities, government agencies, research institutes, and private industry.

Water illustrates the point. Today, roughly eighty percent of Israel’s drinking water comes from desalinated seawater. Combined with one of the world’s highest rates of wastewater reuse and decades of research on water-efficient agriculture, Israel has developed expertise that is increasingly relevant far beyond the Middle East.

Few European countries have built a national water system that combines desalination, wastewater recycling, and efficient water management on a comparable scale. That experience cannot simply be copied, but it can be studied, adapted, and improved through joint research.

Israeli researchers have also advanced drought-resistant crops, precision irrigation, renewable energy technologies, climate monitoring systems, and innovative approaches to managing scarce natural resources. These achievements belong to no single institution. They reflect decades of work across Israel’s universities, public laboratories, research centers, and technology sector.

Europe, for its part, brings equally important strengths. Its universities lead the world in climate science, environmental regulation, sustainable architecture, renewable energy, and urban planning. European institutions have also produced some of the world’s most ambitious climate legislation.

This is not a story of one side teaching the other. It is a partnership built on complementary strengths. Europe has become a global leader in reducing emissions. Israel has accumulated practical experience in adapting to heat and water scarcity. Together they can develop solutions that will benefit societies far beyond either region.

This is precisely the kind of partnership that Brussels and Jerusalem have spent decades building through scientific cooperation and research frameworks such as the Horizon Europe research program. These programs exist because both sides recognized that knowledge is among the strongest foundations of a durable relationship.

Yet today a striking contradiction has emerged.

At the precise moment Europe most needs climate-adaptation expertise, political pressure is growing in parts of the Union to suspend or restrict Israel’s participation in Horizon Europe. European governments are fully entitled to debate Israeli policies. But Europe will not strengthen its future by weakening scientific cooperation.

Climate change will not wait for political consensus. Every barrier to joint research reduces Europe’s ability to confront challenges ranging from water security and food production to energy resilience and public health. Excluding Israeli researchers would not slow global warming. It would simply deny the EU access to expertise that could help it adapt more effectively.

The historical dimension

There is also a deeper historical dimension to this story.

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, believed that Israel’s future would be shaped in the Negev desert. He saw the desert not simply as territory to cultivate but as a laboratory where science and innovation would determine whether communities could flourish under arid conditions.

Almost 80 years later, that vision has acquired unexpected relevance. As Europe confronts longer droughts, more frequent wildfires, shrinking reservoirs, and increasingly dangerous summers, many of the questions Israeli scientists have explored for decades are becoming European questions as well.

None of this suggests that Israel has solved climate change. It has not. Israel continues to face rising temperatures and growing environmental pressures of its own. But experience matters, especially when it is shared with partners confronting similar realities.

For too long, relations between Israel and the EU have been viewed almost exclusively through the prism of political disagreement. A warming climate offers an opportunity to strengthen another pillar of the relationship, one built on scientific excellence, practical cooperation, and shared interests.

The next chapter in Israel-Europe relations may therefore be written not only in diplomatic meetings but also in laboratories, research centers, and university partnerships, where progress is measured by discovery rather than political rhetoric.

Europe is only beginning to learn what it means to live in a hotter world. Israel has been learning that lesson for generations. In a warming world, knowledge may prove to be the most valuable bridge between them.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post A hotter Europe needs Israeli science first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

When European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X after meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Ankara was “a key partner on security, migration and energy,” praised its role protecting NATO’s eastern flank, and voiced hope for closer relations between Brussels and Ankara, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar answered within hours.

Kallas’s message, he noted, said nothing about Turkey’s deteriorating democratic record: mounting pressure on opposition politicians, journalists and peaceful protesters. “A masterclass in hypocrisy,” he called it.

Whether Sa’ar’s criticism was fair is not the central question. The exchange became the latest episode in a relationship between Jerusalem and Brussels that has grown steadily more strained. But focusing on the question of double standards risks missing something more consequential, something that has drawn almost no attention: Israel is still engaging an outdated image of Europe.

Just days earlier, the European Union published the spring 2026 Standard Eurobarometer. The findings deserved more notice than another spat on social media. A majority of Europeans, 51%, now trust the European Union, three points higher than in the autumn 2025 survey. Some 73% see it as a place of stability in a troubled world, and 81% support a common defense and security policy among member states.

The significance of these findings extends well beyond public opinion. Trust is also a source of political legitimacy. Institutions that enjoy growing public confidence acquire greater authority to act, both internally and internationally. For Israel, this means that the European Union is not merely a forum for familiar diplomatic arguments; it is becoming a more legitimate and more consequential actor.

You won’t find a single word here about:

The brutal human rights violations in Turkey, which were on display again just weeks ago when a Turkish court removed the newly elected leader of the main opposition party from office; peaceful protesters being met with force and mass… t.co/2E3NGui2v3

— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) July 1, 2026

This suggests that Israeli thinking about the union still rests on assumptions many Europeans no longer hold. That view once made perfect sense. For much of the past decade, those assumptions closely reflected the union’s political trajectory.

The sovereign debt crisis exposed deep economic strain. The refugee crisis laid bare sharp political divisions. Brexit seemed to confirm an integration project heading toward irreversible decline. Populist parties gained ground across the continent, while constant disputes among member states reinforced the image of a bloc too fragmented to operate with purpose. Years of this encouraged Israeli policymakers to view the European Union primarily as a divided economic club, rather than as an increasingly consequential geopolitical actor.

That is not the entity taking shape now.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine reshaped the course of European integration. Instead of fragmenting, the European Union coordinated sweeping sanctions against Russia; financed military assistance to Ukraine; expanded defense investment; diversified energy supplies; and invested heavily in industrial resilience and advanced technologies. Doubts about future American leadership have only accelerated this process.

The Eurobarometer survey shows that this transformation extends well beyond Brussels. E.U. citizens increasingly support it. They recognize that security, migration, technological competition, climate change and geopolitical instability require collective European action.

That reality should matter greatly in Jerusalem.

Israeli foreign policy continues to devote much of its attention to bilateral relations with European capitals. Those relationships remain indispensable. Germany, Italy, Greece, Czechia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and other member states will always remain essential partners.

But today’s European Union can no longer be understood through national capitals alone. Many of the decisions shaping Israel’s strategic environment are increasingly negotiated and adopted in Brussels. Trade policy, Horizon Europe research funding, AI, digital regulation, sanctions, environmental standards, industrial strategy and expanding areas of foreign policy now emerge from common E.U. institutions.

This is one of the most important transformations in European politics over the past two decades. Israeli diplomacy has not fully caught up.

Israel continues to approach the union primarily through bilateral channels, even as Brussels acquires greater influence over issues that directly affect Israeli economic, scientific, technological and diplomatic interests. The result is a widening gap between the Europe that Israel believes it is engaging and the Europe that increasingly shapes decisions affecting Israel’s interests.

The recent suspension of Israeli contacts with Kaja Kallas illustrates this broader challenge. Whatever its immediate diplomatic logic, reducing engagement with Brussels does not diminish the union’s influence. It merely limits Israel’s opportunities to influence decisions before they are taken.

This has become particularly evident since October 2023. Disagreements over Gaza, humanitarian assistance, violent settlers, international law and the prospects for peace have strained relations between Israel and several European institutions. At the same time, antisemitism has surged across Europe, leaving Jewish communities increasingly vulnerable to violence and hostility generated by events unfolding thousands of kilometers away.

These developments have understandably generated deep frustration in Israel. Frustration, however, is not a strategy.

Many Israelis now dismiss Brussels as politically irrelevant. The Eurobarometer survey suggests precisely the opposite. Institutions that enjoy rising public confidence tend to gain political authority rather than lose it. Governments become more willing to act through them, and international partners have even greater reason to engage them seriously. As the European Union assumes a larger role in security, defense, technology and economic policy, Israel has a greater interest in engaging Brussels rather than bypassing it.

None of this requires accepting every European criticism. Democracies disagree, particularly during war. Israel has every right to challenge positions it considers unfair, inconsistent or detached from regional realities; however, disagreement is not a substitute for understanding.

A more effective Israeli approach would not abandon bilateral diplomacy. It would complement it with a more serious Brussels strategy. That means sustained engagement with the European External Action Service, the European Commission, the High Representative’s office and the European Parliament; treating E.U. regulatory, research and sanctions debates as strategic files; and entering conversations early to shape outcomes rather than merely react to them.

The case for doing so is practical, not sentimental. The European Union remains Israel’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly a third of Israel’s total goods trade. Its research programs provide Israeli universities, scientists and industry with unparalleled opportunities for cooperation. Israeli innovation strengthens Europe in cybersecurity, health care, agriculture, water technology, climate adaptation and AI. These shared interests have become more important, not less.

Too much of the Israeli debate still reflects the union of the Brexit era rather than the union that exists today. Europe has become more integrated in strategically important fields, more confident in its institutions and more willing to act collectively. It’s becoming more cohesive and more confident. These changes are already reshaping the continent.

Successful foreign policy begins with an accurate understanding of political realities. The costliest strategic mistakes rarely result from underestimating adversaries. More often, they stem from misreading partners.

The latest exchange between Gideon Sa’ar and Kaja Kallas will soon fade from the headlines. The larger strategic challenge will remain.

Published in JNS

The post Israel is engaging yesterday’s Europe first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.