The same proportion of Israelis believe US President Barack Obama’s
administration leans toward the Palestinians as who think it favors Israel,
according to a Smith Research poll sponsored by The Jerusalem Post this
week.
The poll of 500 respondents representing a statistical sample of
the adult Jewish population was taken on Sunday and Monday and had a 4.5
percentage point margin of error. The full results of the survey, including key
questions regarding a potential military strike on Iran, will be revealed for
the first time at Sunday’s Jerusalem Post Conference in New York.
Asked
whether the Obama administration is more pro- Israel, more pro-Palestinian or
neutral, 24% said more pro- Israel, 24% said more pro-Palestinian, 36% said
neutral and 16% did not express an opinion.
Israelis’ views on the Obama
administration varied significantly based on where they place themselves on the
political map. Those who consider themselves left-wing were more likely to call
the administration more pro-Israel, while right-wing Israelis were more likely
to perceive it as more pro-Palestinian.
Among left-wing Israelis, 44%
said the administration was more pro-Israel, 8% said more pro-Palestinian and
39% said neutral. Among rightists, 19% said more pro-Israel, 37% said more
pro-Palestinian, and 31% said neutral.
The numbers among Israelis who
consider themselves centrist were more reflective of the general results of the
poll. Twenty three percent called the Obama administration more pro-Israel, 24%
said more pro-Palestinian and 45% said neutral.
The question was exactly
the same as in six other Smith Research polls conducted for the Post since May 2009.
In that first poll, 31% predicted that the Obama administration would be more
pro-Israel and 14% said more pro-Palestinian.
The next poll was taken
less than a month later, following the first White House meeting between Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Obama and the American president’s landmark
speech to the Muslim world in Cairo. It found a huge shift, with the proportion
calling the Obama administration more pro-Palestinian rising from 14% to 50% and
the proportion calling it more pro-Israel falling from 31% to only
6%.
Those calling the Obama presidency more pro-Israel than
pro-Palestinian fell in August 2009 to a low point of 4% and rose to 9% in March
2010, 10% in July 2010, and 12% in May 2011, the most recent previous Smith
Research poll on the issue.
In September 2011, the same question was
asked in a survey sponsored by this newspaper that was conducted by a different
pollster who used different methods. Keevoon Strategies took the poll
immediately after Obama delivered what was considered a very pro-Israel address
to the United Nations General Assembly and blocked an effort by the Palestinians
to persuade the UN to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state along the 1949
armistice lines.
That poll found that the percentage of Israelis who
considered the Obama administration more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian was
54%.
