'19% of Israelis support non-US-backed Iran strike'

Poll finds vast majority of Israelis against unilateral military strike on Iran, Israeli Jews prefer Obama over all republican rivals.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
IDF jet 311 (photo credit: IDF spokesperson)
IDF jet 311
(photo credit: IDF spokesperson)
Only 19 percent of Israelis support an attack against Iran without the backing of the United States, a new poll released on Wednesday found.
In the poll conducted by Shibley Telhami, Brookings nonresident senior fellow and the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, 42% of respondents said they support a strike against Iran only if there is US support for the move. Nearly a third, 32%, of those polled oppose an attack regardless of US support.
According to the poll, 38% of Israelis believe the US would support Israel diplomatically if the Jewish state carried out a unilateral strike against Iran, whereas 27% of respondents think Washington would join in militarily to support Israel even if it struck the Islamic Republic without US approval.
The survey also polled Jewish Israelis’ feelings on the US presidential race, with respondents preferring President Barack Obama to all his Republican rivals.
Overall, among Israeli Jews, Obama led Santorum 34% to 21%, Gingrich 31% to 27%, Paul 34% to 24%, and Romney 32% to 29%.
Telhami concluded that “the Israeli public is neither enthusiastic about the prospect of war with Iran nor swayed by the seeming embrace of Israel by our presidential candidates.”
“They have to live with the consequences of war, and they appear to take the American assessment of these consequences seriously,” he added.
The poll was conducted from February 22-26 by the Dahaf Institute among a nationally representative sample of 500 Israelis.
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat
Click here for full Jpost coverage of the Iranian threat