Poll shows American women less supportive than men of Israel

More numbers from Quinnipiac University about the nature of American support toward Israel show men are more positive than women in their view of foreign countries, a trend most evident with countries like Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, in a survey asking Americans to identify countries in which support of America is the most visible, the public identified England, Canada and Israel as the most favorable and Iran, North Korea and Cuba as the least favorable.

In the article I wrote on Sunday I mentioned a recent poll by The Israel Project of elite public opinion in which "84% of U.S. opinion elite consider Israel one of U.S.' strongest allies."

But the TIP poll does not provide a men/women breakdown and analysis, which the Quinnipiac poll now does. Women tend to be more positive toward countries with which the United States has "strained relations," such as Syria and the Palestinian territories (And also Cuba and North Korea). "The gender gap has been part of American politics for decades, but this split is interesting because women are disproportionately Democratic, and in this survey Democrats are more positive than Republicans about these countries overall," says Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

American men rate Israel much more favorably than do American women: 72.1 compared to 61.3 (out of possible 100 points). That's the second highest margin after Iraq. The men/women gap on Iraq is 11.9 points, while the gap on Israel is 10.8. The next largest gap is present on attitude toward Saudi Arabia - 47.6 points for men, 37.4 for women.

How can this gap regarding Israel be explained? It is not really clear, and Brown's rationale does not sound very convincing: "the violence associated with the Iraq War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might explain the divergent views." But if that is the case, one would expect to see the same difference in reference to the Palestinians (The large difference isn't there: Palestinians get 24.1 from men and 24.6 from women).

One thing, however, is clear from the past: Democrats, in general, tend to be less supportive of Israel. In the poll released last week by The Israel Project, the gap between the parties was also evident: 82 percent of GOP voters opposed a resumption of financial aid to the Palestinian government compared to 48 percent of Democrats. 87 percent of Republicans believe Israel is one of America's strongest allies compared to 80 percent Democrats.

Two more examples (one can find many more): Last summer, a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 68 percent of Republicans surveyed said they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, compared to 45 percent of Democrats. Similarly, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found that Republicans favored alignment with Israel over neutrality - 64 percent to 29 percent. By contrast, 39 percent of Democrats supported alignment with Israel, while 54 percent favored neutrality. "Among political groups, Israel evokes the most sympathy among self-identified conservatives and Republicans," the Pew study reported.

Thus, if American women are "disproportionately Democratic" as evident from all polls (look, for example, at the 2006 election exit polls), you might as well expect them to be less supportive of Israel.

And why would Democrats be less favorable toward Israel?

That's a question on a whole different level, and I've been struggling with it for a while. Back in August, writing about the coming midterm elections, I was offering this explanation by using yet another poll taken during the Lebanon war: "A Pew survey? showed an interesting response to how much the U.S. should be involved in Lebanon. Most Republicans felt that the administration is intervening appropriately; however, many of the Democrats felt their country should be both "much more involved" and "much less involved." In this they reflected two common approaches of voters on the left: that calling for diplomatic intervention to settle conflicts, and that demanding the U.S. avoid interfering in such areas."