Pew Survey: Israelis View U.S. Policy as ‘Too Favorable’ Toward Israel
Yup, that’s a knock-out statistic from the just released Pew Global Attitudes Survey (full report and summary report) of international attitudes toward the U.S. and its international role and policies:
Even in Israel, a slim 42% plurality says America is too supportive of their country, while 13% say the U.S. favors the Palestinians too much and 37% say U.S. policies are fair.
So take that Republican Jewish Coalition when you attempt to paint the Democratic Party as “soft” on Israel because members polled found U.S. policy tilted toward Israel. Even Israelis believe this! And notably, vast majorities in almost every country polled agree that U.S. policy is overly favorable toward Israel–with the sole exception of the U.S. itself:
tags pew-global-attitudes-project, u.s.-mideast-policy-favors-israelAbout a third of Americans (34%) see U.S. policy in the region as fair, 27% say it favors Israel, and 8% say it favors the Palestinians.
amechad said,
June 28, 2007 @ 2:38 am
Wait wait wait, where is the word “too” coming in. That 42% of Israelis say Americans are supportive of Israel, 37% say America is balanced and 8% say it’s pro-Pal, but reading the survey, the “too” doesn’t seem to have been so clear. 42% of Israelis saying the US is pro-Israel (tilted towards Israel) is not a bad thing (in their/our minds).
Michael said,
June 28, 2007 @ 5:45 am
amechad, it says exactly “too supportive”.
What’s more remarkable, is that 13% of Israelis think that the US is “too supportive” of the Palestinians. Geez, what the hell do they want!
imjudy said,
June 28, 2007 @ 10:49 am
To have a poll claim that 42% of Israelis think the US is “too supportive” of Israel only makes me question what kind of a poll this is. No doubt Israeli Arabs might think this, but they are not 42% of the population of Israel.
Richard Silverstein said,
June 28, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
There’s nothing wrong w. a nation’s foreign policy being slanted toward one people & against another–unless that nation is supposedly attempting to play a constructive role in brokering a settlement bet. the 2 peoples. And when the people of Israel admit that the U.S. is overly favorable toward their interests (& biased against the interests of the Palestinians by implication), then this doesn’t bode well.
As for that 13% of Israelis who believe we support the Palestinians, those are the Israelis who don’t believe there IS a Palestinian people or that they deserve anything other than bullets down their throats.
geoffrey said,
June 28, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
What does the PGAS say about, for example, Iranian attitudes towards their government’s policy on Israelis and Palestinians respectively. And do you think the 56 members of the Islamic Conference are even-handed in their approach>
John Yorke said,
June 28, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
Thus it follows that, somewhere in the great scheme of things, something without bias is needed. Or something where bias is so reduced or effectively removed from the equation that it ceases to become an issue.
Ring any bells?
Richard Silverstein said,
June 29, 2007 @ 12:32 am
I don’t believe it says anything on that subject as it deals mostly with issues concerning U.S. foreign policy.
david friedlander said,
June 30, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
I think statistics 101 would be an excellent intellectual pursuit for you, hopefully at the undergraduate level.
The “right wing” in Israel has dominated the political scene, bringing both Netanyahu and Sharon who are staunchly pro-Israel. Before that there was Barak who was a centrist or a left wing prime minister mugged by reality. The platforms of these leaders are well known.
So there are two options - either we can believe the poll that you quote with all the problems that polls can have (phraseology, methodology, sample size) or we can believe what Israelis actually vote for. Furthermore if you look specifically at the Israeli Jewish population there is a large margin.
If you cannot draw a simple comparative analysis of this nature than your credibility is severely harmed
Richard Silverstein said,
June 30, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Yr. attempts at wit are indeed savage & oh so cutting. If you’ve got problems w. the Pew survey take it up w. them. I didn’t make up the statistics. I didn’t conduct the poll. Yr sarcasm is misplaced.
Further, the poll wasn’t measuring Israeli political attitudes or who they voted for in an election. It was trying to measure for the sake of U.S. policy makers & Americans the attitudes of foreign countries toward us. It simply found that a plurality of Israelis believe that U.S. policy tilts toward Israel. That’s my simply comparative analysis. If you don’t like it lump it.
What’s interesting is when right-wing pro-Israel ideologues find that poll numbers show that they’re in the minority of Israelis they all of a sudden doubt the poll or the messenger as in my case.
Zhu Bajie said,
June 30, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
How does Pew define “too favorable”?
Zhu Bajie