Rabat – Arab attitudes towards the US, Iran, and the two-state solution have changed in light of the continued Israeli aggression on Gaza, new data from the Arab Barometer has found.
In a Foreign Affairs essay, Arab Barometer experts said that one nationally representative poll they were conducting in Tunisia happened to record half its responses before the start of the war and the other half after, giving us a basic idea of the changing attitudes in light of the events.
Since October 7, every country in the survey with positive relations with Israel saw its favorability ratings decline among respondents, with the US experiencing the steepest drop as they unconditionally stood by Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime.
Countries that have stayed neutral saw little shift in their perception, while Iran – a vehemently anti-Israel regime – saw its favorability rise to match even that of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
While the data is not representative of all Arab countries, the experts pointed out that Tunisia has historically similar views to other countries in past surveys.
The report also points out that the changing attitudes are not merely a knee-jerk reaction, with the views slowly changing over a period of weeks, rather than a sudden change of attitudes during the first day of the attacks.
“As a result, it is most likely that Tunisians’ views shifted not in response to Hamas’s attack but to the subsequent events, namely, the increasing cost to civilians of Israel’s military operation in Gaza,” the essay reads.
They also said that the Israeli war in Gaza could be hurting the public support for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, as more Tunisians have shown themselves to be in favor of Palestinian fighting and resolving the conflict by force since the aggression started.
Since October 7, Israel has launched a massive war on the Gaza strip which has resulted in the deaths of over 18,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
