How bad do Israelis think Obama is? As bad as a US President can get

The caveats are all obvious but still worth repeating. President Barack Obama is President of the US, not Israel. Israelis don’t get to vote in US elections, and US Presidents don’t necessarily desire a high approval rating among Israelis. The fact that Obama is unpopular in Israel – and we know that he has been unpopular for quite a while – might be of no significance to him. In fact, Obama might even think that such unpopularity is a reasonable result of his solid Middle East policies. Or he might think that if Israel is the type of country in which a leader like Prime Minister Netanyahu is popular, being unpopular means you’re doing something right.

Of course, there is a counter argument to be made: for an American President to be more effective as he handles the important relations with Israel, it is better to be popular in Israel. Having some leverage with Israelis is a tool that a President can use wisely, if he has it at his disposal.

Obama doesn’t have it – as a new survey by Menachem Lazar, the pollster of Panels Politics, proves. Lazar was kind enough to let me pen some of the questions for this survey, and was even kinder to share the results with me. It is a survey that has more than one important component, and I will share them with you in the coming days, one at a time.

So first – Obama. Three years ago, before the 2012 Presidential election, Lazar asked Jewish Israelis the usual question: Is the Obama administration more “pro Israeli, pro Palestinian or neutral?”. It is a tricky question with many problems, as it assumes a zero-sum-game that doesn’t exist in such a simplistic fashion. But it is an indication of something, as the many pollsters who decided to use some version of this question all assume.  So Lazar used it, and more Jewish Israelis told him that the Obama administration was “pro-Palestinian” (47%) than “neutral” (24%) or “pro-Israeli” (21%).

That was 2012 – and we are in 2015. After the failure of another attempt at the peace process. After Iran. After the Obama-Netanyahu bickering. Thus it should surprise no one that the Obama administration is less popular today with Jewish Israelis than it was three years ago. If one in five respondents thought back then that Obama is “pro Israeli”, today only one in ten respondents (9%) would apply a “pro Israeli” tag to the US administration. 60% of respondents call the Obama administration “pro Palestinian”.

In fact, even among respondents that identified themselves as “left”, only 16% believe that the Obama administration is “pro Israeli”, with 46% calling it “neutral” and 33% calling it “pro Palestinian” (“neutral” is not a positive assessment). Naturally, when we look at right-leaning respondents, and at religious respondents, the belief that Obama is pro Israeli hits rock bottom. 77% of right-wing Jewish Israelis call the administration “pro Palestinian”. 81% of religious Jewish Israelis call the administration “pro Palestinian”.

So the Obama administration is “pro Palestinian” – or so Jewish Israelis think (Palestinians would laugh at such an assessment). But it is more so than previous administrations?

We did not specifically ask that question, but we did ask two questions from which we can learn more about the negative image of Obama in Israel today. We asked Israelis to identify the “best for Israel” President of the last 30 years, and the “worst for Israel” American President of the last thirty years. From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama – through Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama. When it comes to the “best” President, Israelis hesitate, as they have more than one candidate for the top spot. But when they are asked about the “worst” there is no such hesitation. One President stands head and shoulders above all others: Obama – with 63% of Jewish Israelis choosing him. Carter comes at a distant second with 16%, and other presidents are barely mentioned (the Bushes with 4% and 3%, Reagan with 2%).

Even in the tiny left (7% in this survey, 8-9% in previous Lazar polls) Obama comes on top as the worst-ever President for Israel with 35%. Carter is second with 21%. Interestingly, approval of Carter is compatible with age: the older the respondent, the higher percentage Carter gets. There's an obvious reason for this – the older the Israeli, the more he or she remembers the Carter years.

If Obama is worst-ever, who was the best-ever President for Israel? When we asked our Israel Factor panel of experts three years ago, the answer was Bill Clinton. When Lazar asked  Israeli Jews the same question now he got the same answer – but it was a close call: 37% for Clinton, 34% for George W. Bush (Reagan was third with 8%).

This should put to rest any presumption that Israelis dislike Obama because of imaginary “Republican” tendencies. Israelis don’t have a problem with the Democratic Party or with a Democratic President. They don’t instinctively assume that any Republican is going to be better than any Democrat. They remember Clinton fondly, even though he clashed with Netanyahu, even though he pushed for a peace process and laid out “parameters” for peace, even though he was not a huge fan of settlements. Israelis remember Clinton fondly because, unlike Obama, he was able to convince them that Israel is dear to him. Among secular Israelis, among centrist (and left-wing) Jewish Israelis, Clinton comes first, with Bush a distant second (among seculars: 47% to 29%). But Clinton is also a decent second among religious right wingers – 29% and 25%, compared to 38% and 43% for Bush among these groups.