JINSA Report #549 Standing With Your Friends

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February 14, 2006

JINSA Report #549

Standing With Your Friends

The latest Gallup Poll tells us:
* 57 percent of Americans oppose financial aid for the PA while Hamas is
in power
* 59 percent are more likely to sympathize with Israel over the
Palestinians (15 percent)
* 66 percent who follow world affairs closely
* 77 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats
* 68 percent have a favorable opinion of Israel, including 21percent
very favorable
* 78 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the PA

An American on an Internet talk-back board wrote, "Why would we even
consider (preferring Palestinians) who danced in the streets giving out
candy on 9/11, who burn our flag, who have murdered our diplomats and
ordinary citizens, and who hate us 'infidels'? Of course we like Israel.
We have common values and a common enemy."

Even the Presbyterian Church (USA) is thinking about changing its
position on divestiture from companies working in Israel. According to
an AP story, five regional bodies of the church want to modify or end
divestiture, acknowledging that the policy is "biased against Israel in
favor of the Palestinians."

Good news, right? Yes, it is good that Americans, not just in Washington
but also in the "real" America like Israel. Yes, it is good that
Americans appreciate our shared values and democratic processes. Yes, it
is good that Americans know who the bad guys are. It is in some measure
what separates Americans and our view of the world from the Europeans
and theirs - and we'd always rather be us.

So excuse us for looking for the dross lining, but high sympathy points
for Israel tend to happen when the world is in trouble. Or more
specifically, when the U.S. and Israel are in trouble, we tend to hang
onto each other. In the past 15 years according to Gallup, only during
the first Iraq war - when Saddam was launching SCUDs into Israel - and
shortly before the second Iraq war, was Israel's favorable rating higher
than it is now.

What accounts in some measure for the willingness of Americans to
identify positively with Israel is the fact that so few other people are
identifying positively with either of us.

Americans are feeling the international political heat of policies that
have to deal with the fact that the over-armed, repressive dictatorships
of the Middle East were already a swamp that harbored and supported the
9-11, USS Cole, African Embassies, Beirut barracks, first World Trade
Center, Bali and Madrid terrorists. And they have understood that the
same swamp harbors and supports the terrorists responsible for the
bloody attacks on the Sbarro pizza restaurant, Park Hotel, Apropos Café,
Café Mozart and multiple bus lines.

Without necessarily articulating the thought, Americans know that the
Mohammed cartoon upheaval, instigated and exacerbated by professional
Muslim instigators and exacerbators, comes from the same side of the
civilizational divide as the desecration of empty buildings that used to
be synagogues.

To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3313

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