March 19, 2013

JERUSALEM (JTA) — More Israelis are seeing President Obama as friendly toward the Jewish state, but still many don’t trust the U.S. leader, according to a new poll.

The poll released Monday — two days before Obama makes his first visit to Israel as president — found that 36.5 percent of the 600 Israelis surveyed view Obama as friendly toward Israel, compared to the 29 percent who felt that way a year ago.

Fifty-one percent of the respondents said that Obama is neutral toward Israel, with 10 percent considering him hostile to the nation.

Meanwhile, 40 percent of the respondents said they “do not trust” Obama very much and 13.5 percent said they do not trust him at all to consider Israel’s interests.

The poll, which was conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

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