A new poll has found that 75% of American Jews do not believe that the Arab goal is the “return of occupied territories,” but rather is the destruction of Israel. Only 19% say otherwise. The findings are part of the 2009 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, carried out by the American Jewish Committee and conducted by Synovate during August 30 - September 17, 2009.
Other interesting findings of the survey:
* American Jews oppose, 51% to 41%, the Obama Administration’s call for a stop to all new Israeli settlement construction. The Administration has downgraded this pressure in recent weeks.
* By an even wider margin (58% - 37%), American Jewry opposes a compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction – even within the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinian Authority. Nearly every single American Jew – 94% of those polled – believes that the Palestinian Authority should be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in a final peace agreement.
* Despite the above, more American Jews support the creation of a Palestinian state than do not (49% - 41%), though neither position has a majority. In 2002, Binyamin Netanyahu said, “The danger posed to Israel by a Palestinian state has been defined precisely by [Yasser] Arafat himself. This is what Arafat said in the Arab-language media on the day he signed the Declaration of Principles of the Oslo agreement on the White House lawn [in September 1993], and I quote: ‘Because we cannot defeat Israel in war, we must do so in phases. We will take any Palestinian territory we can lay our hands on and establish our sovereignty on it. Then we will use it as a springboard for other conquests. And when the time comes, we will persuade the Arab countries to join us in delivering a mortal blow to Israel.’”
* Regarding Iran, American Jews support, 56% to 36%, U.S. military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. They would be even happier – 66% to 28% - if Israel would take such action.
* 56% of American Jews believe that anti-Semitism around the world is currently a very serious problem, while 43% believe that it is somewhat of a problem. 45% of American Jews believe that, over the next several years, anti-Semitism around the world will increase greatly, and 42% expect it to remain the same.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) reports that these findings are broadly consistent with a July 2009 Global Marketing Research Services poll of American Jewish Democratic Party supporters. The Global Marketing poll found that by a 55% - 27% margin, they believe that President Obama is naïvely trying to establish a Palestinian state on the presumption that the Palestinians will make peace. It also showed a 52% - 37% majority in favor of Israelis being allowed to build new homes in existing Jewish communities in the disputed territories.
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “These poll findings offer a detailed and devastating rebuttal of the contrived argument of J Street and other far-left activists masquerading as supporters of Israel, that they represent mainstream American Jewry.”
Klein added, “It is interesting to note that even though American Jews in this survey approve in general terms the Obama Administration’s handling of relations with Israel (54% to 32%) - as soon as it comes to specific Obama policies, a majority oppose him.”
The ZOA president explained that this “may indicate that since a large majority of American Jews support the Democratic Party, they may have a knee-jerk sense of loyalty in general terms towards any Democratic president, but their disagreement on specific Obama policies towards Israel is readily apparent in this poll and others.”