70% of Israelis don’t trust US on security, says poll

Seventy percent of Israeli Jews do not believe the US can be relied upon to maintain key Israeli interests and security requirements in the American- brokered agreement being drafted with the Palestinians, a Geocartography Institute poll taken this week found.When the pollsters asked respondents whether they trusted the US under President Barack Obama to maintain Israel’s interests in a deal, 23% said definitely no, 25% said no, 22% said not completely, 17% said yes, 8% said definitely yes and 5% had no opinion.Asked whether they agreed with recent criticism of US Secretary of State John Kerry by top Israeli officials, 67% said yes and only 32% said no.But among the respondents who answered affirmatively, 13% said Israeli officials should be careful not to criticize the US publicly.Sixty-seven percent said they agreed with the concerns about a potential boycott of Israel that Kerry raised. Only 17% said they were not concerned at all about such a boycott.Geocartography Institute director Avi Degani, who took the poll, said middle-class Israelis were most concerned about a boycott.The poll of 500 respondents representing a sample of the adult Jewish Israeli population has a 4.2% point margin of error.