U.S. 'elites' support Israel, but aren't sure it wants peace

The Leadership Mission to Washington of the Jewish Orthodox Union held a luncheon last Wednesday at the U.S. Senate's Hart Office Building. Guests placed kosher roast beef and chicken sandwiches on white Styrofoam plates, added a dollop of mustard, and ended with fruit and cake for dessert. Senators got up one after another to address the audience - some of them major veterans like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman; others were less known freshman, such as Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota. All pointedly swore allegiance to the deep friendship between the United States and Israel.

Republican senator from Kansas Sam Brownback began by describing his meetings with Christian audiences, with whom he always keeps in touch - and now more than ever, during the seemingly endless presidential race in which he is a long-shot contender. He told of a telephone conference call he had held with Christian leaders in Iowa, one of the states that traditionally votes very early on in the primaries. The first question they asked him was, "Where do you stand on Israel?" From this he learned that support for Israel - among Americans in general, not just Jews - is "deep and wide."

The senator's finding is no surprise to anyone who follows polls regularly. One such survey, whose results are being published here for the first time, was commissioned in April by The Israel Project, an organization that strives to improve Israel's image in America and the rest of the world. TIP polled 500 representatives of the "opinion elite": college graduates with annual incomes above $75,000, who vote in elections, and read newspapers and magazines. They were asked, among other things, to rank their attitude toward Israel and Hamas, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah, on a scale of 1 to 100, with below 50 indicating a "cold" attitude and above it a "warm" attitude. Israel received a 66, while the others scored between 19 (Hezbollah) and 30 (Syria).

"Who is to blame for the instability in the Middle East?" the poll asked. Seventy-three percent blamed "Islamic extremism" and only 12 percent named "Israel and its policies."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who today begins his short visit to Washington, which will include meetings with the president and vice president, was already familiar with these survey findings several weeks ago when he hosted in Jerusalem the president of TIP, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg and President Bush's former press secretary, Ari Fleischer. They brought figures, data and also recommendations with them. Among the officials who granted the visitors some of their precious time were also Benjamin Netanyahu, Shaul Mofaz, Avi Dichter, Silvan Shalom, Avigdor Lieberman and many others.

TIP is a small but energetic organization that hires the best American pollsters to conduct public opinion surveys. They were initially greeted with distaste, even suspicion in the corridors of the Foreign Ministry, but relations are better now. Aviv Shir-On, the ministry's deputy director general for media and public affairs, delivered a short lecture at a TIP course when he was in Washington two weeks ago.

The poll contains some rather sad working assumptions: 57 percent "strongly agree" that "the Arab countries around Israel are hostile to its existence," and 85 percent overall said they "agree" with that statement. Some 75 percent said they agreed that "the Arabs don't really accept Israel's right to exist."

But there are also findings that suggest a possible course of action. For example, 70 percent cited the need to be "a leader in working for peace" as heading the list of 13 qualities required of an American "ally." But only 16 percent saw this among Israel's traits.

Sixty percent did not agree that "Israel is an obstacle for peace" - but 38 percent did, and 29 percent of them were Republican voters, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. The findings among the general public constitute an improvement over a poll from October 2005, in which 50 percent said Israel is not an obstacle for peace, compared with 43 percent who believed that it was.

This translation of my Hebrew-print-edition feature on this The Israel Project poll covers only part of what I wrote. Hebrew speakers will be able to read the longer version at www.haaretz.co.il, non-Hebrew speakers will get more of it in the coming days.