Israel second only to Russia on Britain’s threat map

NatCen’s British Social Attitudes chapter puts Israel at 78%, ahead of Iran and North Korea, and records a public that now ranks two close allies among the dangers it fears. The sharper move is the American number, which doubled in two years.

Nearly four in five Britons now call Israel a serious threat to world peace, a judgment that places it second only to Russia among the dangers the British public names. The figure is 78%, against 48% in 2005, in the British Social Attitudes chapter “A more dangerous world” published by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) on Thursday, 5 November 2026. Its author is Sophia Gaston, of King’s College London.

The chapter follows the number through the war. By the autumn of 2024, after a year of fighting in Gaza, 73% of Britons held that view. It then slipped to around two-thirds and returned to 78% in a survey fielded this spring, after the bombing campaign against Iran that the United States and Israel opened in February. The chapter says Israel’s standing has “seemingly suffered from its involvement in recent Middle East conflict.”

A ranking that moved

Russia remains first, at 89%, a share that stood at 41% in 1994. Israel follows at 78%, then Iran at 75%, the United States at 74%, North Korea at 66%, China at 62% and Saudi Arabia at 34%. Israel passed North Korea within the past year. Two of the top four are countries with which Britain maintains close security ties: the U.S. through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Israel through a long-standing defence and intelligence relationship.

The American number is the sharper movement. In 2024, 35% of Britons called the U.S. a serious threat; 74% do now. NatCen ties the rise to “the bitter public disputes with NATO allies over Greenland” and to the February 2026 decision to join Israel in bombing Iran. The series began at 22% in 1994 and reached 47% in 2005, after the invasion of Iraq.

“It is, of course, plausible that, rather than simply judging Israel solely on the basis of its own actions, some people in Britain may fear the risk that developments involving Israel could trigger a much broader regional confrontation, as a catalyst for wider geopolitical instability in the Middle East.”

That is Gaston’s reading: part of the shift may express fear of a wider war more than a verdict on Israel alone. Her larger argument concerns the government’s room to make its case.

The alliance problem

“Public consensus appears strongest where threats are immediate, visible, and easily understood, as in the case of Russia,” she writes. Perceptions diverge “when they pertain to established allies currently pursuing more high-risk foreign policies, such as the United States and Israel.” The party split is steep. The chapter finds that Green voters are 26 percentage points more likely than Reform UK supporters to call Israel a serious threat, and 46 points more likely to say so of the U.S. Younger Britons are likelier than older ones to name both allies.

The same chapter records the first majority in the series favouring higher defence spending: 56%, against 17% who want less. Among Labour supporters the share rose from 28% in 2024 to 55%; among women, from 40% to 52%. Green supporters are the exception, at 21%. On alliances, 42% would prioritise closer ties with Europe, 38% want Europe and America equally, and 9% choose Washington.

The survey measures opinion, and a question about threat says nothing about intent. It does record, though, that the case for British defence now has to be argued to an electorate that lists two close partners among the dangers it fears.