The lead headline on JTA.org was a bit surprising today - "Support for Israel near record high, Gallup Poll shows." Not impossible I guess, but kinda surprising. The article reads:
Support for Israel among Americans is at a near record high, a new poll showed.
According to the Gallup Poll, 63 percent of Americans say their sympathies in the Middle East conflict are with Israel, while 15 percent side with the Palestinians. The rest favor both sides, neither side or have no opinion.
Support for Israel was higher only in 1991, shortly after Israel was hit with Scud missiles during the Gulf War, when it was at 64 percent.
The poll, conducted in early February . .
Wait, this "new" poll is five months old? It was taken before Israel humiliated Vice President Biden? Before Biden and General Petraeus said Israel is hurting US interests in the Middle East? Before the flotilla attack?!
Leigh O'Neill, the Arab American Institute's Director of Government Relations, sent me an AAI poll that begins to tell a different story. Conducted in the middle of March the poll showed that, while Americans do hold more favorable view of Israel than the Palestinians, a majority also believed that "it’s time for the U.S. to 'get tough' with Israel 'to stop building settlements.'” There was also an overwhelming belief, (81% - 15%) that the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a negative impact on U.S. interests." Paints a different picture, doesn't it?
And of course even that poll was before the flotilla. Didi Remez posted the leaked results of a Frank Luntz poll taken following the flotilla attack which showed:
1. 56% of Americans agree with the claim that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza;
2. 43% of Americans agree with the claim that people in Gaza are starving;
3. [Only] 34% of Americans support the Israeli operation against the Flotilla;
4. [Only] 20% of Americans “felt support” for Israel following announcement of easing of Gaza closure.
So, in February 63% of Americans felt their sympathies were with Israel, and by June only 20% of Americans felt support for Israel - and this was after they eased the Gaza blockade to ostensibly improve their international image. I'd say it's been a rough few months for Israeli hasbara. Thanks for reminding us of the way things used to be JTA!
“Get tough with Israel.” Americans will always vote for getting tough.
You got ir right.
Every trick in the book.. As the delicious man of wit Forrest Gump says: “When the shit is about to hit the fan, do somethin’; even if it is wrong”.
Let’s hope and pray the Israelis believe it. Then they’ll keep on doing the dumb things they’ve been doing.
CBS’s anchor, Katie Couric, who interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu recently, asked him why 71% of Israeli Jews hate Obama? She also wanted to know if Bibi trusts Obama? Is Bibi satisfied with Obama’s policy towards Islamic Iran? Ignoring Bibi’s rant – Katie, however, did succeed in telling her Americans audience that the important thing is what Netanyahu thinks is better for them and not their elected President……
link to rehmat2.wordpress.com
What would the results be if Americans were polled about the foreign aid Israel gets? How about detailed polls that inform people that Israel gets more foreign aid than any other country; that Israelis have social services better than Americans (don’t they have socialized medicine/national healthcare?); that they are building these settlements against the wishes of the US government; that the official 9/11 theory (theory because we’ve yet to see any evidence) is that the attacks were in part because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians?
They don’t do those kind of polls yet but its coming. We’ve come a long way since 1991 when the only one I remember speaking out about Israel and Israel firsters was Pat Buchanan — he called Congress “Israeli occupied territory.” He got a lot of flak. I remember Ted Koppel doing a Nightline linking Buchanan’s father to a right wing radio personality from the Depression area, Father Coughlin.
Berthe, yes, that would be a really interesting poll; who would commission it, monitor it?
polls are tools used to manipulate on a par with other forms of propaganda. anyone who believes them needs to learn more of what goes into them first.
I don’t think these polls represent a big shift in American opinion. First of all, outside of a small percentage of people who follow events in the Mideast, there is rarely more than a fuzzy perception that “they’re fighting again over there” and maybe among some people who watch the news sometimes, the perception may be something like: “Israel is too tough sometimes, but they are surrounded by a bunch of crazy Arabs, and they are our only friend in the region.” There hasn’t been any seismic shift in American opinion-maybe a temporary blip.
You shouldn’t read too much into these polls. Many years ago I worked in market research, and I can tell you that so much of the results depend on how questions are phrased(sometimes poorly on purpose to get a desired result), or how they are asked. For instance, if the question is phrased: do you sympathize with the Palestinians? rather than: do you support the Palestinians?, it would probably make Americans seem more pro-Palestinian. There’s a ton of little things like that in these polls that influence the results…And then you have to get everyone’s opinion, even those who repeatedly say they don’t know and don’t care about a particular issue. I mean, if you forced me to, I would have predicted a winner of the World Cup, but I don’t know a thing about soccer.
What would be more useful than these scorecard type polls, would be some type of in depth focus group study that would explain scientifically why Americans have the attitudes they do, and, more important, what argument or perceptions can influence those attitudes to change.
Joer, you’re right about the way poll questions are intentionally phrased.
Joer’s words are very wise and I don’t think we should convince ourselves that the last five months have had that much impact. How many people even remember that Biden had a bad time in Jerusalem?
Zionists dissonance on the fact that their scaremongering to garner sympathy is wearing then has me believing they’ve fulfilled the dream of spanning from you ‘fraidies to denial.
Late February, well, those were the good old days, .
Let’s see what future polling has toward the
racist, apartheid & misplaced Bolshevik state.
“…Bolshevik state.”
As an aside. Reading some stuff now which is surprising me. I never realised how much Jews were blamed for the Bolshevik takeover in Russia in the interim between WW I&II. Other commenters have mentioned it.
I have never made the connections as well,
but reading more about it. Stalin and their gang parted
ways and off they went to other places.
link to ynetnews.com
Maybe I should mention that If American Knew is still there, and still presents all the facts about Israel’s special relationship with the US in a graphic, nonideological, and non-religious fashion.
Just the graphs on the opening page alone can dispel the equivalency canard, and shift the discussion for a previously mis-informed person.
It’s a great site.