The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned an American polling firm to perform a sweeping battery of surveys and focus groups, coupled with message-testing, aimed at rehabilitating Israel’s image in both the United States and Europe. The work remains ongoing, but a preliminary report from the firm was leaked to Drop Site News by a source with direct access to it.
The work is being performed by Stagwell Global, a firm founded by notorious political operative Mark Penn, who serves as the company’s chairman and CEO. Penn donated $100,000 to AIPAC after October 7, 2023, and his ties to Likud date back to his work on Menachem Begin’s 1981 campaign for prime minister. Stagwell is also on the verge of getting a no-bid contract from the Trump administration to study American attitudes toward vaccines.
The survey and focus group work attempts to discern what the public knows about the ongoing assault on Gaza and what its various attitudes toward Israel currently are.
It is unclear how much the research is costing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), but the combination of focus groups and surveys make it the type of project that is usually a pricey endeavor. The MoFA was recently gifted an historic increase of an additional $150 million for its budget, with the aim of improving Israel’s image worldwide amid the ongoing genocide.
The study also includes a “Phase 3,” in which research subjects in Europe and the U.S. are shown videos with different messages to test which propaganda is most effective at moving the dial. For instance, one propaganda video they showed research participants involved a “college student with a ‘Free Palestine’ sign who lowers it as she hears more messages about Israel and the conflict until she throws it away,” according to the report.
The survey asked people in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France how many people they believed Israel had killed in Gaza, and what portion of those were civilians. Respondents in all the countries overwhelming said that those killed were “mostly civilians”:
In the U.S. and Germany, the two countries where the public remains relatively supportive of Israel, according to the survey, the respondents also believe that Israel’s campaign has been far less deadly than it has in reality. The median response in the U.S. and Denmark estimating the number killed by Israel was just 10,000—as opposed to the 30,000 and 40,000 death toll estimated in France and Spain, respectively. The current confirmed death toll, certainly an undercount, is over 64,000, though the surveys took place over the past year or so.
That gap in perception versus reality suggests that attitudes toward Israel have not hit their floor.
Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of “Radical Islam” and “Jihadism,” which remain high, the research finds. By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to “destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,” Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country. “Especially once the situation in Gaza is resolved, the room for growth in all countries is very significant,” the report concludes.
Stagwell tested fear of “Radical Islam” and found overwhelming majorities in Europe and the United States cited it as a “threat”:
In each country, three-quarters or more agreed “Radical Islam” was a threat, with France and Germany leading the way. Support for Palestinians over Israelis, however, was markedly higher in France than in Germany.
The report tested Israeli support against Hamas and Iran as well as more broadly against Palestinians as a whole. The numbers in the Stagwell report are markedly more favorable toward Israel than other surveys have found. A recent Quinnipiac survey found 37% of American voters, for instance, said they supported the Palestinians against 36 percent who said the Israelis. The Stagwell poll allowed respondents to choose both rather than forcing a choice, which may account for the divergence.
Israel has a long way to go, however, as the research found Europeans in particular “agree with the language of Israel being a genocidal, apartheid country even though it contradicts their opposition to Hamas and Iran.”
Penn is a longtime ally of Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His firm Penn & Schoen did polling for Menachim Begin in 1981, helping him win a narrow election. Begin had been commander of the terror group Irgun, and was the mastermind of the 1946 King David Hotel bombing, an attack on a nightclub that killed 91 people in an effort to drive the British out of Palestine. In 1982 he led an invasion of Lebanon so deadly to civilians that then-President Ronald Reagan told Begin it was reminiscent of the Holocaust. The subsequent occupation of southern Lebanon gave rise to Hezbollah and lasted until the year 2000.
Penn was close adviser to President Bill Clinton, but has since become a regular presence on Fox News and an ally of President Donald Trump. Stagwell owns SKDK, the Democratic firm co-founded by top Joe Biden adviser Anita Dunn. In February, SKDK registered to do work on behalf of the Israeli MoFA.
Stagwell and the MoFA did not respond to requests for comment. View the full survey here.