Fifty percent of youth would give Israel's leadership a failing grade, according to a poll held Wednesday at a summit of the World Zionist Youth Congress in Haifa.

Sixty-seven percent of participants at the summit believe that Israel is in a state of deterioration. Forty-five percent of participants said they have faith in a small number of the state's leaders, while 49 percent said they could trust nobody in government. Only 6 percent of participants said they could trust most of the country's leaders.

When participants were asked to give a grade to Israel's leaders, 50 percent said they would rank the government as "sufficient" or "insufficient" while another 19 percent said they could grade Israel's leaders as "excellent" or "very good."

	Advertisement

Eighty percent of participants said youth were hardly, if at all, interested in societal issues. Despite the pessimistic outlook participants gave the future of Israel, 70 percent said they would choose to continue living in the country.