Last week saw the release of the 2026 edition of RepCore Nations, the index that asks G7 publics what they actually think of the world’s 60 largest economies.
The headline is bleak in a quietly global way: 43 countries fell in appreciation and esteem, only 14 improved. You can call it a reputation recession. In an age of war, polarization, and economic anxiety, the world is simply liking itself less.
But for Israel, the numbers are worse than bleak. Of all 60 economies measured, we recorded the steepest decline in the entire study – 7.2 points in a single year. Step back to 2022, and the picture is starker still: nearly 16 points and 20 places, from 37th to 57th, in just four years. We now rank near the bottom of the table, only a few rungs above Russia and Iran.
Israel’s sharpest decline in global reputation rankings
Sadly, none of this should come as a surprise. We have stopped bracing for these reports, because we already know what they say. This particular one points to Gaza, alongside the widening fronts in Lebanon and Iran, as the proximate cause, and that is fair.
But this is not just one bad year. Four different research teams – Brand Finance, Anholt, US News, now RepCore – draw the same falling line. These are all surveys that measure perceptions of countries. Layer on top the trackers that measure sentiment and favorability toward Israel – Pew, Gallup, YouGov – and the conclusion only sharpens.
Just yesterday, Pew released a damning survey on favorability (or lack thereof) of Israel in many countries worldwide. When that many independent instruments point the same way, you are no longer looking at a bad season. You are looking at a trend we have already quietly accepted.
And therein lies the problem, because there are two kinds of people who will read these numbers: one kind believes Israel’s policies are the cause, and that they must change before anything else can. The other believes those policies are broadly sound, and that the criticism is unfair, biased, at times hypocritical.
Both can be right simultaneously. But neither position is a reason to accept the damage to our global reputation as given. Whatever you believe about why we are here, one conclusion holds: this is no longer a PR problem. It is a national security threat.
What the situation demands is a conceptual shift and a new term to carry it: Reputational Security.
Just as a state defends its borders, its cyber infrastructure and its economic assets, it must cultivate, promote, and defend the various components of its reputation: trust, legitimacy, relationships, public understanding. Without these, even the strongest military and economy can find itself isolated, constrained, and gradually hollowed out.
From a review of the government budgets, we can immediately see the problem: the combined budget of the Foreign Ministry and the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry to deal with this issue is approximately NIS 3 billion.
The Education Ministry budget, by contrast, is NIS 99b. And the (net) budget of the Defense Ministry is a whopping NIS 143b.! In other words, Israel spends over 40 times more on physical security than on its international standing.
That is not a resource allocation question. It is a failure to recognize the gravity of the situation.
The world is being liked a little less this year. And yes, Israel is being liked a great deal less. The difference is that for us, this is not a recession to wait out. It is a warning – and the question is simply whether anyone in a position to act will decide it’s worth heeding.
The writer is an expert in place branding, the Chair of the Board of the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, and founder of the Reputational Security Lab at Reichman University.