Poll Shows Americans Support Independent Palestinian State by Better Than 3-to-1 Margin

By Richard H. Curtiss

While the Middle East peace process has had its stops and starts throughout the 1990s, American public opinion has evolved steadily and in a totally opposite direction from the tilt toward Israel manifested by both the administration of President Bill Clinton and the legislation being shepherded through a compliant Congress by Israel’s Washington DC lobby.

This was confirmed in a mid-October poll conducted by the polling and marketing research firm of Zogby International. Predictions by the firm, which was used by Reuters International during the 1996 U.S. national elections, were the closest to the final results of any of the several national polling organizations active during that election.

The current poll was based upon answers to four questions by 864 likely voters on Oct 13 and 14, prior to the beginning of the Middle East peace negotiations at the Wye Plantation.

Asked whether they “agree or disagree that $3.2 billion in aid to Israel should be postponed until negotiations continue,” 60.7 percent agreed, 25.9 percent disagreed, and 13.4 percent had no opinion or declined to state it. In fact, these results are not surprising. In 1991, when former President George Bush asked Congress to postpone consideration of Israel’s request for $10 billion in loan guarantees in addition to its annual $3 billion plus in foreign aid until after a reluctant Israel joined in the Madrid Conference on Middle East Peace, a national poll showed 85 percent of the public backed Bush.

In the current poll positive sentiment ran better than three to one when respondents were asked “do you agree or disagree that there should be a Palestinian state?” Those agreeing were 53.9 percent. Those who disagreed were 15.3 percent. And those offering no opinion were 30.8 percent.

The widest spread came when respondents were asked to choose between two statements:

A. “Peace can only be achieved if Jerusalem is claimed again as the exclusive capital of Israel.” Only 14.7 percent agreed with statement A.

B. “Jerusalem is a holy city to three religions and Palestinians are willing to share the city with Israel as the way toward lasting peace.” An overwhelming 66.8 agreed with statement B, with 18.5 percent of respondents offering no opinion on either statement.

The only question upon which opinion was nearly evenly divided was, “Do you agree or disagree that the U.S. should intervene to get Israel to pay compensation to Palestinian survivors?” Those who disagreed were 37.3 percent; those who agreed were 35.9 percent, and those offering no response were 26.8 percent.

In fact the results of the Zogby poll,which has a margin of error of 3.4 percent, should not be particulary surprising to those who discuss Middle East affairs with friends and neighbors. The question that arises, therefore, is why previous polls have not produced similar results. The answer is that there have been few, if any, previous polls on these subjects, except by private organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee, which commissions an annual poll on subjects related to Israel, but seldom makes all of the results public.

In fact polling organizations generally follow similar methods in carrying out polls for whatever organization commissions them. Most public polls, however, are commissioned by combinations of major television networks and print media.

This poll was commissioned by two much smaller organizations. They were the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, a Palestinian-American think tank, and the Council for the National Interest, which supports tying foreign aid directly to the national interest, and an even-handed U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Of interest both to politicians and scholars are the demographics of the respondents. If it is correct to assume that political opinions “trickle down” from the most highly educated, this poll is very good news for the Palestinians and their supporters.

On the most partisan question, concerning whether there should be a Palestinian state, support went hand in hand with education. Only 30.4 percent of those who had not finished high school supported it, as did 52 percent who had a high school degree, 52.5 percent of those with some college, and 60.4 percent of those holding college degrees.

Religion played a lesser role than education. Among Catholics, 57.8 supported and 11.1 percent opposed a Palestinian state. Figures for Protestants were 49.8 yes and 17.7 no, and for Jews 51.6 yes and 24.6 percent no.

There were only nine Jewish respondents in the poll (just over 1 percent of the respondents although Jews are about 2 percent of the U.S. population) meaning that such a small sampling has no statistical significance for Jews, according to Mr. Zogby. Nevertheless, Jewish repondents were much more negative on the other three questions than were Catholics or Protestants. Only 18.4 percent of Jews supported tying aid to Israel to negotiations, 16.8 percent of Jews supported Israeli compensation to Palestinian survivors, and Jews were about evenly divided on Jerusalem with 34.8 supporting statement A, 35.6 supporting statement B, and 29.6 offering no opinion.

Support for a Palestinian state also rose with income, though less consistently. Of those in the lowest income bracket ($15,000 p/a or lower), only 41.8 percent supported an independent Palestinian state, while among those in the highest bracket ($75,000 or more), 58.3 percent supported it.

The poll was good news for Americans seeking to free U.S. foreign policy from domestic lobbies. It will also provide arresting reading for both Republican and Democratic politicians who have followed recommendations of lobbyists for Israel, on the assumption that their constituents back home are not paying attention to Middle East problems.

Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report.