Israel grouped with Iran, North Korea as world's least popular countries

People are finally catching on!

BBC poll surveying 27 countries shows that Israel is viewed as having a negative influence in the world; negative opinions in U.S. and U.K. increased over past year.

By Haaretz Service Tags: Israel news

A poll conducted by the BBC revealed Tuesday that Israel is one of the most negatively viewed countries in the world, ranking at the bottom of the chart along with Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.

In 2011, 22 out of 27 countries leaned toward a negative view of Israel, headed by Egypt, Turkey, and Indonesia. The countries which had the most positive view of Israel were the United States, Russia, Ghana, and China.

	Photo by: BBC

Participants were asked in a questionnaire, "Please tell me if you think each of the following countries is having a mainly positive or mainly negative influence in the world," giving the options "mainly positive, mainly negative, depends" and "neutral."

The order of popularity of the 16 countries, based on 27 countries that were surveyed, was Germany, UK, Japan, Canada, France, U.S., Brazil, China, South Africa, India, South Korea, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran.

Despite Israel's extremely low ranking, it has actually made a slight improvement in its world standing since 2010, and a more significant improvement since 2007. According to the poll, positive views of Israel increased by 2% while negative views remained mostly same as in 2010.

However, while positive ratings by the U.S. have remained stable in the poll since 2010 at about 43%, many more Americans chose to rate Israel negatively in 2011, marking an increase of 10% since 2010.

Moreover, negative perceptions of Israel grew stronger in Britain, Canada, Indonesia, Australia, Portugal, Spain, and Kenya.

	Anti-Israel protesters in Barcelona last year.