Nearly half of Americans want Netanyahu arrested despite Israel’s multimillion-dollar propaganda drive

Nearly half of Americans believe the US should arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll⁠.

The survey found that 49 per cent support arresting Netanyahu on the basis of the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), while 27 per cent oppose his arrest and 23 per cent remain unsure. 

Among those who voted in the 2024 US presidential election, 74 per cent of Kamala Harris voters supported arresting Netanyahu. Notably, almost a quarter — 23 per cent — of Donald Trump voters also backed his arrest. 

The findings suggest that calls to hold the Israeli prime minister accountable for Israel’s conduct in Gaza have spread well beyond the traditional supporters of Palestine.

Forty-seven per cent of respondents said they believe Netanyahu is guilty of war crimes in Gaza, compared with 24 per cent who disagreed. The same proportion said his actions had damaged relations between Israel and the US. 

The poll also found that 43 per cent of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide against Palestinian civilians, while 24 per cent said it is not. Among Harris voters, 72 per cent described Israel’s conduct as genocide, compared with 22 per cent of Trump voters. 

YouGov surveyed 1,559 US adult citizens between 25 and 27 July, 2026. 

READ: New Pew poll shows support for Israel plummeting in the US

The ICC issued its arrest warrant for Netanyahu on 21 November, 2024, over allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza. The Court also issued a warrant for former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

The poll comes as Israel spends tens of millions of dollars attempting to reverse the collapse in American support and reshape how the public understands its genocide in Gaza.

An investigation this week revealed that the Israeli government awarded a $46.5 million contract to Clock Tower X, a company owned by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, to influence what artificial intelligence chatbots tell users about Israel and Gaza.

The company has created ten websites which present themselves as sources of news, research or fact-checking. They publish material defending Israel’s military conduct, rejecting accusations of genocide, discrediting Palestinian journalists killed by Israel and casting doubt on the killing of five-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab. 

The apparent aim is to fill the internet with carefully written Israeli propaganda that AI chatbots may find, cite or eventually learn from.

AI services including Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Perplexity had cited material from Clock Tower websites. In some cases, the chatbots did not tell users that the websites had been created on behalf of the Israeli government. 

The network has also entered Common Crawl, a large collection of online material used by researchers and technology companies developing AI systems. Clock Tower’s ten websites had been collected by Common Crawl 912 times between January and June.

The new YouGov findings expose the scale of the challenge facing Israel’s influence campaign. Despite spending millions on artificial intelligence, online influencers, mass text messages, advertisements and conservative media, almost half of Americans now support the arrest of the Israeli prime minister.

The figures also suggest that Israel’s deteriorating standing is not simply the result of poor public relations. A growing share of Americans appear to reject the conduct being promoted and defended by the propaganda campaign itself.

READ: Israel pays millions to ‘poison’ AI chatbots with Gaza propaganda, report finds