A new Pew Research Center survey finds the same five-week war in Iran produced three sharply different public verdicts. 75% of Israelis say the United States made the right decision in attacking Iran. 80% of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem say it was the wrong decision, and 59% of Americans do as well.
The report, drawn from surveys conducted in Israel, the West Bank, and the United States between March 30 and May 6, 2026, shows the gap runs well beyond the headline numbers. Within each country, support for the war tracks its own fault lines: ethnic in Israel, partisan in the United States, and geographic in the region itself. The war killed Iran’s supreme leader and ended in a ceasefire on April 7. The three publics have come away with three different accounts of what it was for.
Three Publics, Three Verdicts on the Same War
The survey asked the same question in each country: did the United States make the right decision in attacking Iran. Three-quarters of Israelis said yes. Eight-in-ten Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem said no. About six-in-ten Americans said no and 38% said yes, with views holding steady between mid-March and late April 2026. The US share saying the military action was not going well ticked up over the same period.
The pattern holds across follow-up questions. On whether the war will make their own country safer, 66% of Israeli Jews said yes, against 22% of Arab Israelis, while 69% of Palestinians said the war would leave them less safe. Americans were more split, with 40% saying the war would make the US less safe and 22% saying it would make it more safe.
The gap also shows up on what each public expects the war to deliver long-term. By roughly two-to-one, Palestinians said the war would make Iran more likely, not less likely, to develop a nuclear weapon (31% vs. 13%), though 39% said they were unsure. Israeli Jews thought the opposite was coming, with 58% saying the war would make an Iranian bomb less likely. Only 26% of Arab Israelis agreed. Americans were roughly evenly split on the same question, with Republicans and Democrats giving nearly opposite answers.
| Question | Israelis | Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem) | Americans |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did the US make the right decision attacking Iran? | 75% yes | 80% no | 59% no, 38% yes |
| Will the war make our country safer? | 66% of Jewish Israelis yes; 22% of Arab Israelis | 69% say no, will be less safe | 22% yes, 40% no |
| Will the war make Iran less likely to develop nukes? | 58% of Jewish Israelis yes; 26% of Arab Israelis | 13% yes, 31% no, 39% unsure | roughly even |
Israel’s Two Deep Splits on the War
Inside Israel, the public verdict is itself split along two of the country’s deepest lines: ethnicity and coalition politics. Among Jewish Israelis, 87% say Israel made the right decision in attacking Iran, against 19% of Arab Israelis. The coalition divide among Jewish Israelis is also wide. The same pattern shows up across the survey’s other questions.
| Question | Coalition-supporting Jews | Non-supporter Jews | Arab Israelis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Israel made the right decision attacking Iran | 96% yes | 77% yes | 19% yes |
| War will make Israel safer | 84% yes | 46% yes | 22% yes |
| War will make Iran less likely to develop nukes | 71% yes | 43% yes | 26% yes |
The governing-coalition divide runs almost as wide. Among Jewish Israelis who support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, 96% say Israel made the right decision. Among Jewish Israelis who do not back the coalition, 77% take the same view, with the report flagging the gap as the largest political chasm inside the Jewish public.
On the war’s likely payoff, the same fault lines appear. Two-thirds of Israeli Jews, 66%, think the war will leave Israel safer, against 22% of Arab Israelis. Coalition-supporting Jews are much more likely than non-supporters to share that view, 84% vs. 46%. On whether the war will make Iran less likely to develop a nuclear weapon, 71% of coalition-supporting Jews agree, compared with 43% of non-supporters and 26% of Arab Israelis. Netanyahu’s conditions for ending the war have run on a parallel track with his coalition’s view of the fight.
The same coalition dynamic shows up in expectations for the Iranian people themselves. Half, 52%, of coalition-supporting Jews think the war will leave Iranians better off in the long run, against 27% of non-supporters. Jewish Israelis are much more likely than Arab Israelis to share that view, 40% vs 13%. Many in each group are unsure.
Palestinians See the War as Another Cost
For Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the survey offers no comfort and no counter-majority. Eighty percent say the US made the wrong decision attacking Iran, and about seven-in-ten expect the war to leave them, Palestine, and the world less safe. By roughly two-to-one (31% to 13%), they expect the war to make Iran more likely, not less likely, to develop a nuclear weapon, though 39% say they are unsure.
On the war’s likely effect on Iranians themselves, Palestinians tilt heavily toward the negative: 46% say Iranians will be worse off in the long run, 9% say better off, and about a third are unsure. The survey does not break the Palestinian results down by age or education, which the report says are fairly similar across groups. One key absence runs through all the Palestinian numbers: Gazans were not surveyed in 2026, and the war’s missile and drone exchanges also reached Gaza. No comparable Gaza public verdict exists in the report. For a separate look at how the war has been covered, see how Middle East outlets covered the Iran war.
America’s 70-vs-90 Partisan Mirror
The American numbers, on the surface, are a soft majority against the war. Just under six-in-ten, 59%, say the US made the wrong decision attacking Iran, against 38% who say it was right. The two surveys run weeks apart, in mid-March and late April 2026, returned the same split, and the share saying the war was not going well ticked up in between.
Underneath that majority, the country is nearly two different publics. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 70% say the US made the right decision attacking Iran. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 90% say it was the wrong decision. The split runs the same way on most downstream questions.
On the war’s downstream effects, the partisan mirror is even sharper. In March, 55% of Republicans said the war would make the world safer, against 10% who said less safe, while 54% of Democrats said it would make the world less safe, almost exactly the reverse. Democrats are also much more likely than Republicans to think the war will leave the Iranian people worse off in the long run.
What Each Side Expects From the War
The longer-range questions on safety, nuclear weapons, and the fate of the Iranian people follow the same three-way split. A 57% majority of Israelis broadly anticipate a safer world, a safer Israel, and an Iran that is less likely to develop a nuclear weapon once the war is over. Israelis are less sanguine about the Iranian people themselves, with 34% expecting them to be better off and 26% expecting them to be worse off. Many Israelis are unsure.
Palestinians tilt the opposite way on every count. They expect the war to leave them, Palestine, and the world less safe, and to make Iran more likely, not less likely, to develop a nuclear weapon, by 31% to 13%. The report notes that large shares of Palestinians remain unsure on the nuclear question in particular.
Americans fall between the two, leaning negative on balance. Forty percent say the war will make the US less safe, against 22% who say more safe. They are more likely to say the world will be less safe than to say safer, 33% to 27%, with 19% saying no difference and an identical 19% unsure. On whether Iran will be more or less likely to develop a nuclear weapon, Americans are about evenly split, and they are more likely to think Iranians will be worse off than better off in the long run.
The Americans most likely to see a downside for Iran itself are Democrats, the report says, who are far more likely than Republicans to expect the war to make Iranian lives worse in the long run. The Americans most likely to see upside are Republicans, who said in March that the war would make the world safer, 55% against 10% who said less safe. Inside Israel, a similar divide runs between coalition-supporting and non-supporting Jews, and the gap widens on every question the survey asked.
The Methodology Behind the Survey
The trilateral comparison rests on a series of surveys published on June 9, with the full results in the trilateral report on the war. The US portion drew on three separate samples, run before and after the April 7 ceasefire. The Israeli and Palestinian samples overlapped with both the war and the immediate post-war period. The team was not able to reach Palestinians in Gaza, and the report carries that absence through every Gaza-relevant finding.
In Israel, the survey covered 1,001 adults, including 399 Arab Israelis, from April 5 to May 6, 2026. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the team surveyed 1,038 Palestinians from March 30 to April 28. Both samples were designed so the results could be generalized to the adult populations in each territory.
The US fieldwork ran across three separate surveys, with the largest, most recent sample of 5,103 adults fielded from April 20 to 26, 2026, after the ceasefire. The earlier two US samples, of 3,524 and 3,507 adults, were fielded in mid- and late March 2026, before the ceasefire. The question on whether the US made the right decision attacking Iran returned essentially the same split across all three US waves, which is why the report treats the US view as stable through the war’s final weeks. The deeper splits on safety, nuclear weapons, and the fate of the Iranian people all sit on top of that stable majority. Younger and older Americans also diverged on most of the same questions, and the gaps were especially sharp between younger and older Republicans.
- March 16-22, 2026: 3,524 US adults
- March 23-29, 2026: 3,507 US adults
- April 20-26, 2026: 5,103 US adults
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Iran war start and end?
The war began on February 28, 2026, with US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. After more than five weeks of fighting, a ceasefire went into effect on April 7, 2026.
Who did Pew survey for this report?
The survey covered 1,001 Israelis from April 5 to May 6, 2026, of whom 399 were Arab Israelis, and 1,038 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem from March 30 to April 28, 2026. The US portion drew on three separate surveys of 3,524, 3,507, and 5,103 adults, fielded between March 16 and April 26, 2026.
Were Palestinians in Gaza included in the survey?
No. The team was not able to survey Palestinians in Gaza in 2026, and the report carries the Gaza absence through every Gaza-relevant finding.
How big is the partisan gap among Americans?
70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the US made the right decision attacking Iran, against 90% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who say it was the wrong decision. The split runs the same way on most downstream questions.
Do Israelis agree with each other on the war?
Not fully. 87% of Israeli Jews say Israel made the right decision in attacking Iran, against 19% of Arab Israelis. Among Jewish Israelis, the gap between coalition supporters and non-supporters is 96% vs 77% on the same question.
