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March 23, 2009

New poll of American Jewry has some surprises

J Street just announced their 2009 poll of American Jews on a range of issues from President Obama to his foreign policy goals.

A few highlights after the jump.

Extremely strong support for the U.S. disagreeing with both sides in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict ratcheted up another notch from last year's survey with 76% for and 24% against. Similarly, support for the U.S. exerting pressure on BOTH sides went up as well, 72% to 28%. Those numbers drop considerably if the U.S. administration were to disagree with only Israel or pressure only Israel. But they remain majorities of American Jewry even so, at 58% and 57% respectively.

60% oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Interestingly, after being given brief arguments by both supporters and opponents of settlements the numbers didn't budge - indicating that the opposition is very deeply entrenched. Even more interesting, among American Jews who give money to political campaigns oppose expanding settlements by a huge 72%.

As controversial as Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman is in Israel, among American Jews he is deeply unpopular with a solid 69% being opposed.

But the shocker of the poll is when American Jews were asked whether or not they support the Obama administration actively engaging a unified Palestinian (i.e. includes Hamas) government. A whopping 69% of American Jews support the idea of engaging the Palestinians even with Hamas as participants! That's huge because it runs absolutely counter to both official American policy and to official Israeli policy too.

Lastly here and I'll refer you to the poll for the rest of its details.... Obama is hugely popular. Indeed he is vastly more popular with American Jews than Israeli Prime Minister-designate Netanyahu, 74% to Netanyahu's 58%. But they clearly prefer Netanyahu to Rush Limbaugh (73% UNfavorable), Sarah Palin (73% UNfavorable) or the Republican Party as a whole (72% UNfavorable).

Go check out the rest.

Posted by Kevin at March 23, 2009 03:41 PM