Why more and more Americans don't like Israel (Hint: It's not just partisanship)

The world since October 7 has been an increasingly bleak one for Israelis and Jews around the world. The revelations of popular antisemitism across the globe, not just among Muslims but also many western "progressives" and elites has been an eye-opener and not in a good way.

Things have reached the point that even basic safety for Jewish citizens and institutions in "liberal, multicultural cities" is open to serious question.

But nowhere have the warning signs begun to flash red more than general public sentiment towards Israel - despite October 7, despite the great efforts by Israel to be more Catholic than the Pope about following the laws of war, despite the horrific ordeal of the hostages.

And nowhere is this decline more shocking and more disheartening than in the United States.

Both Gallup and Pew, among the few polling institutions all sides still trust, show an outright majority of Democrats having a "negative" opinion of Israel. Even a near-majority of Republicans aged 18-49 (!) have such a view, according to Pew.

What on earth happened?

Polarization can explain some of this: previous polls showed Democratic views of Israel took a nosedive since Trump was elected in 2016 and have only worsened since. But political polarization cannot explain the young Republican shift against the Jewish state.

Could it be the media, which often reports but also seriously distorts the war in Gaza against Israel, and indeed often fails to fairly represent its side? Is it social media and contrarian podcasts, which often spread rumors and unfounded libels against a country fighting a highly complex war?

I've no doubt these also have an effect. But here's the thing: at least according to Pew, they don't affect all American groups equally. There's a breakdown no-one's mentioning that reveals where Israel's real problem lies: religion.

Americans who claim to be religiously affiliated, with the sole, obvious exception of Muslims, are either pro-Israel or reasonably balanced on the question of whether they like Israel or not - very much in line with American opinion of Israel since the founding of the country in 1948.

There is one, very large group where this does not apply: the religiously unaffiliated, or "Nones" as they are called. Pew's most recent poll for 2025 shows that unaffiliated Americans dislike Israel almost as much as American Muslims (!), with a decisive majority in the dislike column.

How is it that these Americans have such a deep dislike of Israel compared to everyone else?

I can offer some suggestions.

One is that the religiously unaffiliated, who tend to be more secular, doubting, and who often look to other sources of meaning than Gd, tend to become virulently political, almost to the exclusion of anything else. They seek causes, especially "progressive" or liberal ones, and "Free Palestine" has been a trendy cause in those circles for a long time.

Looking at it from the other end, Americans who believe in some form of the Christian Gd tend broadly today to be favorable towards Jews (a wonderful development which was not always the case), will tend to judge Jews favorably or at least allow that there must be another side to the story.

But the unaffiliated have no such reference point, and may indeed consider anyone the religious support to be suspect, or at the very least have no clear reason to assume Israel is anything other than the monster the media claims it to be.

Either way, pro-Israel voices need to realize, and soon, that the rapid decline in support for Israel is being driven not only by political polarization, which will ebb and flow, but also by a deeper and perhaps more lasting social trend which bodes very ill for the Jewish State.

If Israel is to survive, or at least continue to enjoy the broad public support it so desperately needs from the United States in an increasingly hostile world, it needs to learn to win over those whose faith in Gd has waned - lest their faith in Israel die completely, as well.