Poll: U.S. split most on Cuba, Israel

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PRINCETON, N.J., March 21 (UPI) -- Democrats have more positive views than Republicans about most other countries, with the two sides most split in their views on Cuba and Israel, a poll found.

In its annual World Affairs survey, released Thursday, Gallup found the overall favorability of U.S. citizens toward 22 countries ranged from 91 percent for Canada to 9 percent for Iran.

Philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats were most distinct in 10 of the countries, Gallup said, with Democrats more favorable to nine of the countries.

Democrats favored China, Cuba, Egypt and Mexico by more than 20 percent over Republicans, the poll said.

That was not the case when Gallup conducted a similar poll in 2005. Then, Cuba was the only country that generated a similarly large partisan difference, which Democrats also viewed more favorably at the time.

In the new poll, 78 percent of Republicans held positive attitudes about Israel, compared to 60 percent among Democrats. It was the only country for which Republicans reflected a double-digit positive attitude.

The partisan difference was virtually unchanged from 2005, when 76 percent of Republicans favored Israel over 65 percent of Democrats.

The poll of 1,015 adults was conducted Feb. 7-10. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.