Menachem Mendel

If you were wondering why there isn’t much enthusiasm for the Peace Process in Israel, the latest Pew poll might offer some direction (summary, full report).

In Arab nations, attitudes toward Jews remain extremely negative. More than 90% of Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese and Palestinians express unfavorable views toward Jews. Only 35% of Israeli Arabs, however, express a negative opinion.

This is in addition to 78% of Pakistanis, 74% of Indonesians, and 73% of Turks, who hold negative attitudes towards Jews. So all of those Arabs and Muslims who have probably never met a Jew before seem to hold unfavorable views, not of Israelis, but of Jews, while only 35% of Israeli Arabs hold a negative opinion of Jews. For some comparison, according to a 2008 poll, 46% of Spaniards, 36% of Poles, and 34% of Russians held unfavorable attitudes towards Jews. Boy, are we well liked. Not to let Israelis off the hook, the recent Pew poll found that many Israeli aren’t too fond of Christians.

Israeli Jews are more than twice as likely as Israeli Arabs to give Christians an
unfavorable rating (49% vs. 20%)

So much for any influence from all of the support from John Hagee and Pat Boone.

Not surprisingly, there hasn’t been much reporting on this poll, with some exceptions being Elder of Ziyon, who focused on how popular Bin Laden and Nasrallah are among Palestinians and other Arabs, and the Jerusalem Post.

While we are talking about polls and statistics, I wanted to just make a few comments on the recent spat between Andrew Sullivan and Leon Wieseltier. Here is Wieseltier’s opening salvo, and here is Sullivan’s response. While I still read Andrew’s blog, I do think that he has gone off the deep end regarding criticism of Israel and how much influence supporters of Israel have on US policy. Is he anti-Semitic? Who knows, but I do know that he often has one standard of, at least, literary criteria for describing Israel which seems to be reserved only for her. It seems that only Israel can “pulverize” somebody, as you can see from this search of his archives. American and NATO bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, never a pulverize there.

Another instance is his post Jihadism And The Israel Question. In this post he writes

Jihadism has many causes. It is, as my shrink helpfully says, multi-determined. But the idea that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and pulverization of Gaza can be bracketed entirely out of that dynamic is loopy (see how the CIA’s double agent turned again after Gaza). It’s clear that taking the Israel-Palestine question off the table would help us tackle Jihadism immensely. If the US were to help establish a Palestinian state and could be shown to stand up to Netanyahu’s continual provocation, it would help the US advance its interests in the region and the world.

In this paragraph Sullivan makes two claims, one of which is based on hearsay, the other which avoids the central issue. The first is his claim that the “CIA’s double agent turned again after Gaza.” For proof of this claim he links to a post by Matt Yglesias, another person who would do best sticking to writing about areas of which they are knowledgeable. Yglesias, along with the echo chamber of Glenn Greenwald and Spencer Ackerman, seemed to almost enjoy the New York Time’s article which included the following quote from the brother of the man who blew himself up along with a Jordanian intelligence officer and seven CIA personnel.

H[is brother] described Mr. Balawi as a “very good brother” and a “brilliant doctor,” saying that the family knew nothing of Mr. Balawi’s writings under a pseudonym on jihadi Web sites. He said, however, that his brother had been “changed” by last year’s three-week-long Israeli offensive in Gaza, which killed about 1,300 Palestinians.

To Ackerman’s credit he also wrote

The answer for the U.S. is not to sever ties with Israel or turn hostile toward it. It’s to seek an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict and a stable Middle East. That will not stop Islamic extremism.

The problem is that Ackerman et al. seem to think that somehow a magic wand can be waved an suddenly we’ll see “an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict and a stable Middle East.” All of the above mentioned bloggers are very smart people, but they suffer from the “I am smart, therefore I am able to comment, and maybe even must, on everything” syndrome. But back to the quote. So a brother of someone who blew himself up is suddenly the authoritative interpreter of the suicide bomber’s inner thoughts. A friend of his also claimed that he ranted about the need to wage jihad against America and Israel. Maybe in one of his internet postings he even mentioned Israel, but when the suicide bomber himself had his chance to speak his mind to the world, guess what he said.

“This jihadi attack will be the first revenge operation against the Americans and their drone teams outside the Pakistan border,” the bomber said on the video. Al-Balawi – wearing an Afghan hat and camouflaged jacket – said the Pakistani Taliban, now under the leadership of its new chief Hakimullah Mehsud, would fight till victory. “We will never forget the blood of our emir Baitullah Mehsud,” said al-Balawi. “We will always demand revenge for him inside America and outside.”

Not a word about Israel, rather, the bomber himself justified his attack by citing a bombing that America carried out.

While I know that people are always arguing about polls and how accurate they are, here are a few statistics for Sullivan et al. According to a 2006 Zogby poll of the Arab world,

When asked what steps the United States could take to improve its regional standing, 62 percent identified brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on 1967 borders. A significant minority of respondents identified withdrawal from Iraq (33 percent), and withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Arabian Peninsula (22 percent) as well. More than half (52 percent) ranked U.S. policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict as “extremely important.”

There you have it, the smoking gun, but wait…according to a 2009 Zogby poll,

Asked what issue would be most central to their assessment of Obama’s policy in the region, 42 percent of the entire sample cited the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq; 26 percent cited the Arab-Israeli conflict; and 16 percent, Obama’s attitudes towards the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Here is one of Marc Lynch’s comments on the poll,

Iraq was the single most important issue influencing Arab attitudes towards the Obama administration. Asked what issue would be most central to their assessment of the Obama administration’s Middle East policy, 42% said Iraq, 26% said the Arab-Israeli conflict, and 16% said “attitudes towards Arab/Muslim world” (i.e. showing respect). Asked what two issues would improve views of the U.S. the most, 51% named “withdrawal from Iraq”, while 41% said “Israel-Palestine peace agreement.” Oddly, however, 50% said “withdrawal from Arabian peninsula” — make of that what you will.

Well Andrew, the Iraq War which you supported seems to be a bigger factor in contributing to Arab attitudes towards America than Netanyahu, settlements, etc., at least until the next poll.

Part of the problem may be that some bloggers feel that since you’re writing on a blog, you actually don’t have to think too much about what you’re saying. If so, then blogging, at least in the way that some understand it, is bad for our brains. I vehemently disagree with this approach, and if I ever start acting in this manner, I behoove you to yell at me very loudly (a comment full of CAPS will do just fine).

Despite all of this, I still enjoy reading his blog from time to time.

Update: Leon Wieseltier responds here to Andrew Sullivan’s response.

Posted on February 11th, 2010 under Israel • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed