Netanyahu Identifies the Real Force Behind Shifting American Opinion on Israel

Clear Facts

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly correlated the decline in U.S. support for Israel with the exponential growth of social media platforms
• Netanyahu stated foreign countries have manipulated social media to spread anti-Israel propaganda, though he opposes censorship
• An NBC News poll showed support for Israel dropped to just 32% positive among Americans, with 39% viewing the nation negatively

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a stark assessment of the forces reshaping American public opinion on his nation during a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday. The longtime leader pointed to a specific culprit: the rise of social media and its manipulation by hostile foreign actors.

“Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said.

“We text message millions of text messages to them—make millions of phone calls to them, pamphlets, leaflets, you name it, OK? We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost — I would say, it correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media.”

The prime minister didn’t stop at identifying social media’s growth as the problem. He went further, explaining how adversarial nations have weaponized these platforms against Israel through sophisticated propaganda campaigns.

“And that by itself is not what caused it. And I don’t believe in, you know, in censoring them or anything,” Netanyahu continued. “But I’ll tell you what happened. We have several countries that basically manipulated social media. And they do it in a clever way. And that’s something that has hurt us badly.”

Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel has made “mistakes” in its war against Hamas but emphasized that they were not deliberate actions. He argued that Israel faces an uphill battle on the information front.

“Israel is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we’ve not done well on the propaganda war,” he said.

To illustrate the power of coordinated propaganda, Netanyahu offered host Major Garrett a pointed example about how perception can be manufactured through repetition.

“I can paint you as a monster,” Netanyahu said. “And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.”

The numbers bear out Netanyahu’s concerns about shifting American sentiment. An NBC News poll in March found that only 32% of Americans view Israel positively while 39% of Americans saw the nation in a negative light. The shift was far more pronounced among Democrats and independents, while Republicans were still largely sympathetic to the Jewish state.

This dramatic opinion shift followed Israel’s defensive war in Gaza after the October 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, as well as U.S.-led military strikes on Iran. The timing suggests that social media narratives around these conflicts played a significant role in shaping public perception.

During the interview, Netanyahu also addressed the broader regional conflict, indicating that the confrontation with Iran remains far from resolved despite recent military successes.

“I think it accomplished a great deal, but it’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran. There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce. Now, we’ve degraded a lot of it. But all that is still there, and there’s work to be done,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister’s comments raise important questions about foreign influence operations on American social media platforms and their impact on public opinion regarding one of America’s longest-standing allies in the Middle East. As hostile regimes become increasingly sophisticated in their information warfare tactics, the challenge of maintaining public support for strategic partnerships grows more complex.

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