Israeli public swings back to Trump as Republican convention set to give him nomination - analysis

As Republicans gather in Milwaukee this week to coronate Donald Trump as its presidential nominee, polls in Israel taken even before the attempt on Trump's life are showing that - despite recent assertions made by US President Joe Biden - Israelis would prefer to see Trump in the White House in 2025 rather than Biden.

A Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) poll released this week found that 46% of Israelis prefer Trump to Biden, while 30% prefer Biden and 24% have no opinion.

Among Jewish Israelis, the preference for Trump is even stronger, 51% to 35%. The preference for Trump reflected in this poll is consistent with a Channel 12 poll taken two weeks ago that showed Israelis favor Trump over Biden 48% - 27%.

On Thursday, Biden at a wide-ranging press conference which he hoped would dispel doubts following his disastrous debate with Trump that he was still up to the job of president, said that "my numbers are better in Israel than they are here."

That was not the only issue regarding popular opinion that the president got wrong. He also said that there is a "growing dissatisfaction" with Hamas on the West Bank and that the terror organization "is not popular now."

Polling, however, suggests the exact opposite, with a poll conducted by Khalil Shikaki of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research from May 26 - June 1 showing that 82% of respondents in the West Bank were satisfied with Hamas' performance during the war, and 71% wanted to see Hamas retain control of Gaza after the war.

Phenomenal shift in Israeli public opinion

Biden's claim about strong polling numbers in Israel was true … in the early stages of the war.

For instance, a Midgam poll in mid-December found that 41% of 503 Jewish Israeli respondents said "Biden" when asked who they wanted to win the next US elections, while only 26% said “Trump.”

And that poll was no outlier. A JPPI poll taken in the second week of the war found that 56% of the Israeli Jews queried felt that Biden was better for Israel than Trump, while only 22% said the opposite, and the rest did not know.

Those findings represented a phenomenal shift in Israeli public opinion toward Biden and away from Trump. For instance, before the elections in 2020, an Israel Democracy Institute Poll released a day before the US election found that 63% of all Israelis (70% among Israeli Jews) favored Trump with only 17% (13% among Jews) preferring Biden.

This preference for Trump over Biden continued through July 2023, when Channel 12 showed that 44% of Israeli citizens preferred Trump to return to the White House in 2025, compared to 30% who favored a second term for Biden.

Then October 7 hit, and everything changed.

 Biden's initial unstinting support -- moral, diplomatic, and military -- won over the country. He won over the country by giving a couple of tremendously supportive speeches in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas invasion, by coming to Israel on October 18 -- the first US president to ever visit during wartime -- by unequivocally warning the Iranians and Hezbollah not to attack Israel, and by sending two aircraft carrier strike forces to the region to back up his threats.

As Biden was surprising many Israelis with his unstinting support, Trump -- on the other hand -- was disappointing others with some of his initial post-October 7 comments. For instance, he variously called Defense Minister Yoav Gallant a “jerk,”  said Netanyahu let him down when it came to the killing of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, and labeled Hezbollah "very smart."

Biden's initial support bespoke of a president who supported the country to the hilt at its time of need, while Trump's initial comments seemed gratuitous at best, unhelpful and unnecessarily critical, and deflating at worst.

His words disappointed many Israelis who expected the same type of unwavering support from him as they got from Biden, especially considering the former president’s track record in office when he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords.

This all led to a shift in Israeli opinion from Trump to Biden.

As the war raged on, however, and as dents emerged in Biden's unstinting support -- from criticism of Israel for "indiscriminate" bombing, to taking the country to task for what he repeatedly said was not providing enough humanitarian aid to Gaza,  to trying to keep the IDF from going into Rafah to public disputes over the flow of arms to Israel -- Biden's support among the Israeli public began to wane significantly.

This showed up clearly in an Israel Democracy Institute poll taken from May 1-6. Asked which of the two candidates would be better in terms of Israel's interests, 42.5% of the Jewish Israelis said Trump, compared to 32% for Biden. (In the Arab sector, 13% said Trump, 14% Biden, and fully 68% said there is no difference). In the intervening two months, support for Trump has grown even wider.

While souring support for Biden and soaring support for Trump among Israelis is interesting, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter, though one question often heard when speaking to groups of American Jews is who Israelis want to see win the election. This is not because they are taking their cues from Israelis about who to vote for, but rather out of genuine curiosity about whom Israelis believe is the better candidate for the Jewish state.

What does matter is the US Jewish vote. There, too, Biden has lost ground.

In the 2020 election, American Jews overwhelmingly preferred Biden to Trump -- though how overwhelmingly depends on which poll one believes.  According to Pew, in 2020, Jews voted  70% to 27% for Biden, AP put that number at 68%-30%, while a J Street exit poll put the 2020 numbers at 77%-21% for Biden.

This time, however, various polls are showing less support for Biden.

A Jewish Electoral Institute poll taken from April 16-April 21, showed Biden leading Trump 67%-24%, similar to an American Jewish Committee poll taken a few weeks earlier that had Biden beating Trump 61-23%. However, a Siena College poll of New York voters, where an estimated 30% of US Jews live, found Biden out-polling Trump by a historically slim margin: 52% to 46%.

All of that polling, however, took place before the Trump-Biden debate that renewed questions about Biden's ability to begin a second term at the age of 81, and before Saturday's attempted assassination of Trump.

With the Republican party set to coronate Trump, the evolving dynamics of Jewish and Israeli support for the two candidates will likely come into sharper focus.

As the election draws nearer, both Trump and Biden will be vying for the crucial Jewish votes in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada that will determine the elections, and to do that they will -- as Biden did at his press conference last week -- boast of support in Israel.

The preference of the the Israeli public has swung wildly over the last year from Trump to Biden and back to Trump. It is hard to believe that -- in the absence of any profoundly dramatic event -- it will swing back to Biden.

Yet, another profoundly dramatic event before the US elections in November cannot entirely be ruled out. After all, this is the Middle East.