Standing With Your Friends
The latest Gallup Poll tells us:
- 57 percent of Americans oppose financial aid for the PA while Hamas is in power
- 59 percent are more likely to sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians (15 percent)
- 66 percent who follow world affairs closely
- 77 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats
- 68 percent have a favorable opinion of Israel, including 21percent very favorable
- 78 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the PA
The latest Gallup Poll tells us:
- 57 percent of Americans oppose financial aid for the PA while Hamas is in power
- 59 percent are more likely to sympathize with Israel over the Palestinians (15 percent)
- 66 percent who follow world affairs closely
- 77 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats
- 68 percent have a favorable opinion of Israel, including 21percent very favorable
- 78 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the PA
An American on an Internet talk-back board wrote, “Why would we even consider (preferring Palestinians) who danced in the streets giving out candy on 9/11, who burn our flag, who have murdered our diplomats and ordinary citizens, and who hate us ‘infidels’? Of course we like Israel. We have common values and a common enemy.”
Even the Presbyterian Church (USA) is thinking about changing its position on divestiture from companies working in Israel. According to an AP story, five regional bodies of the church want to modify or end divestiture, acknowledging that the policy is “biased against Israel in favor of the Palestinians.”
Good news, right? Yes, it is good that Americans, not just in Washington but also in the “real” America like Israel. Yes, it is good that Americans appreciate our shared values and democratic processes. Yes, it is good that Americans know who the bad guys are. It is in some measure what separates Americans and our view of the world from the Europeans and theirs – and we’d always rather be us.
So excuse us for looking for the dross lining, but high sympathy points for Israel tend to happen when the world is in trouble. Or more specifically, when the U.S. and Israel are in trouble, we tend to hang onto each other. In the past 15 years according to Gallup, only during the first Iraq war – when Saddam was launching SCUDs into Israel – and shortly before the second Iraq war, was Israel’s favorable rating higher than it is now.
What accounts in some measure for the willingness of Americans to identify positively with Israel is the fact that so few other people are identifying positively with either of us.
Americans are feeling the international political heat of policies that have to deal with the fact that the over-armed, repressive dictatorships of the Middle East were already a swamp that harbored and supported the 9-11, USS Cole, African Embassies, Beirut barracks, first World Trade Center, Bali and Madrid terrorists. And they have understood that the same swamp harbors and supports the terrorist responsible for the bloody attacks in Israel on the Sbarro pizza restaurant, Park Hotel, Apropos Cafe, Cafe Mozart and multiple bus lines.
Without necessarily articulating the thought, Americans know that the Mohammed cartoon upheaval, instigated and exacerbated by professional Muslim instigators and exacerbators, comes from the same side of the civilizational divide as the desecration of empty buildings that used to be synagogues in Gaza.