Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poll. Show all posts

Monday, October 03, 2022


Islamic Jihad (PIJ) mouthpiece Palestine Today has several recent articles about how the May fighting was a great victory for them.

They quote a Lebanese "expert" who describes how they achieved their goals in the fighting. A delegation from Islamic Jihad went to Syria and described their "victory,' saying the war never ended.

One reason for these articles is that PIJ is celebrating its 35th anniversary. 

But another reason may be because the Palestinian public does not consider Islamic Jihad to have won anything in May.

The PCPSR poll I mentioned yesterday asked Palestinians who won the armed confrontations. 
42%  think that neither Israel nor Islamic Jihad won . But 27% (33% in the Gaza Strip and 24% in the West Bank) think Israel came out a winner while only 12% think Islamic Jihad came out a winner. Surprisingly, 11% think Hamas, who did not participate in the confrontation, came out a winner. 

Half of the public (50%) says that Hamas’ decision not to become directly involved in the armed exchange between Islamic Jihad and the Israeli army was the correct decision while 37% say it was the wrong decision.  The view that Hamas did the right thing is more widespread in the Gaza Strip (68%) compared to the West Bank (38%).

Gazans, who have to live with these battles, are pretty much against Islamic Jihad for instigating the conflict, and they are happy that Hamas didn't join - which PIJ clearly wanted to occur.

Islamic Jihad is not very popular in Gaza right now. Its 35th anniversary activities and articles are partially meant to shore up its reputation. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

FAIR - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting - issued a report by Nora Lester Murad that claims that books for toddlers and youngsters that introduce kids to Israel are pretty much racist against Palestinians, because - they aren't about Palestinians.

However, Murad's critique exposes her own disdain for Arabs who live in Israel as well as her own hate for Israeli Jews.

Even though the books aren't about Palestinians, and aren't meant to be, she says that they"erase" Palestinians.

First, Murad claims that they erase through "appropriation:"

Rah! Rah! Mujadara!
, for example, is a 12-page board book for ages 1–4 that has an attractive tagline: “Everybody likes hummus, but that’s just one of the great variety of foods found in Israel among its diverse cultures.”

There’s a subtlety in that tagline that may be lost on some. While diversity is acknowledged, it is represented only within the Israeli sphere, without its own history and separate identity. This is a political position that  jibes with Israel’s intentional deployment of the term “Israeli Arabs” to refer to Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, whom Israel wants to incorporate as an Israeli minority, fragmenting them from the larger Palestinian community and from their national identity.
To progressives, referring to someone in ways that they object to - say, by using the wrong pronoun - is an unforgivable crime. But only a small percentage of Israeli Arabs refer to themselves as "Palestinian." According to a 2020 poll from  Jewish People Policy Institute, only 7% referred to themselves as "Palestinian" while 74% referred to themselves as "Arab Israeli" or simply "Israeli." 

FAIR is showing great disrespect to the people they are claiming to be defending from this book. And the simple children's book is far more accurate in its depiction of Arabs in Israel than FAIR is. 

The critique then veers into the absurd:
Newbies to the the Israeli/Palestinian narrative war may also not realize that food is an active battleground. Palestinians consider Israel’s claiming of hummus and falafel, among other foods, to be cultural appropriation.

Palestinians, therefore, are likely to consider both the people and the food appropriated  when the same [Muslim] girl is featured behind the text:

    Blow, slow.
    Taste. Whoa!
    Brown fa-LA-fel,
    big green mouthful!
Since the state of Israel is not even 75 years old, any food with a longer pedigree must have been originated by someone else. But while Kar-Ben Publishing is surely aware of this contention, they either choose to ignore it or intentionally intend to steer readers towards the Israeli narrative—by hiding the Palestinian one.
But does the book say that falafel is an Israeli-created dish, or does it say that it is a dish that Israeli citizens of all backgrounds enjoy? Clearly it is the latter - "the great variety of foods found in Israel among its diverse cultures." It mentions bagels too - does anyone claim that they are Israeli? Other foods in the book are meant to highlight the different cultures that come together in Israeli society: nowhere does it claim that malawach, mujadara, hummus, or bourekas were created by Israelis except in the fevered imagination of Nora Lester Murad.



Murad is apparently opposed to kids from different backgrounds finding things in common that they like from different cultures. This hardly seems progressive.

Murad then says that books about Israel that show the Dome of the Rock are "erasure through deception" because, she claims, "east Jerusalem" is not part of Israel. However, Israel disagrees, and so do many international jurists. To Jews, the idea of an Israel without the holy places is anathema and extraordinarily offensive.  There is no deception there - people who say that all of Jerusalem is part of Israel have that right. 

But FAIR doesn't recognize that right. We must all believe as they do, or we are racists. So tolerant!

The next "erasure" is "Erasure through both-sidesism." Yes, books about Israel that go out of their way to show Arab Israelis are awful, too - and her main target is, believe it or not, Sesame Street.

Welcome to Israel With Sesame Street (Christy Peterson, Lerner Publishing, 2021)...[has a] “both sides” approach, starting by teaching children how to say hello in both Hebrew and Arabic (pages 4–5).  This “both sides” approach makes a nice visual while hiding Israel’s disrespect for Arabic and Arabic speakers, which is clear in the fact that Arabic had been an official language of Israel until it was officially downgraded in the 2018 Jewish Nation State Law.

Of course, Murad pointedly doesn't mention that the use of Arabic in government documents and in the public sphere is still mandated under Israeli law. Israel still supports and funds its Arabic-language schools. There is no disrespect in reality. But why let the facts get in the way of anti-Israel soundbites?

Presenting “both sides” is a device used to appear neutral, which conjures a sense of objectivity and truth. It is also a way to stake a claim to antiracism and respect. For example, page 11 says that Jerusalem is “special to people of many religions,” over a  photo of Palestinian school girls, some wearing the Muslim hijab.

But presenting Palestinians only as linguistic and religious minorities of Israel, and not as a national group in and of itself, is an Israeli narrative tactic that dehumanizes  Palestinians and undermines readers’ ability to understand Israel. While appearing respectful of diversity, the text and photo cleverly omit that Israel is an explicitly, self-declared Jewish state, that enshrines Jewish supremacy over non-Jews (and the corresponding inequality of Palestinians) by saying, in law, that only Jews have the right to self-determination.
A book for children that celebrates Israel's diversity is regarded as flawed because it should show what Murad declares to be the truth, that Israel is a racist state that doesn't give its Arab citizens equal rights. 

This is all a lie, of course. The same poll I mentioned above shows that virtually the same percentage of non-Jews as Jews feel comfortable being themselves as Israeli citizens. Most Arab citizens of Israel are proud to be Israelis - but Murad the racist wants them to be considered part of a different nation that the vast majority want little or nothing to do with. The bigotry is in Murad's head and in her poison pen, not in the reality of Israel's non-Jewish citizens.

And by the way, virtually every Arab state declares itself to be an Arab state in their constitutions. By Murad's logic, they are all enforcing Arab supremacy. Does anyone think FAIR will ever mention that?

In Murad's twisted mind, Israel is by definition racist, so any children's book that doesn't highlight how terrible Israel is must be guilty of racism as well. The most bizarre part of her argument is that while it is obvious to all that children's books are meant to teach tolerance, which these books are doing, she is against it. Murad is the racist. Her arguments are as racist as those of a white supremacist upset at American schoolbooks that show white children playing with children of color without mentioning comparative crime rates for different groups. 

Finally, Murad freaks out over a map in the Sesame Street book:


The 1949 armistice lines are clearly drawn, and Israel is only shown inside those lines. Egypt, Jordan and Syria are not named. But Murad looks hard to find bias, and of course she succeeds:
Page 6 of Welcome to Israel With Sesame Street incorrectly displays a map of Israel (“and Surrounding Area”) including the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the same shade of yellow. The outlines of the occupied Palestinian territory are visible but not labeled. 
This is her entire argument - the yellow on the map of the territories is slightly different than the yellow of other countries. The actual lines that represent borders, prominently displayed, are meaningless to Murad's bizarre brain - the shade of yellow is offensive.

Hilariously, she sent this litany of paranoid complaints to Sesame Workshop, and they properly ignored her:
Welcome to Israel With Sesame Street, however, is not harmless. It uses subtle messages to contribute to erasure and distortion of Palestinians, which should cause concern among people who care about the educational reputation of the brand. Unfortunately, Sesame Workshop failed to respond to my several inquiries about this book.
Maybe because if she was honestly being as fair as FAIR pretends to be, she would realize that every single one of her complaints is baseless.

It would be amusing to see the same methodology used for children's books about "Palestine." Do they even mention or show pictures of Jews? Do they admit that Jews have the right to live in their historic homeland? Or are Jews not mentioned at best, and called "sons of apes and pigs" at worst?

If FAIR was fair, they would have a Zionist Jew do the exact same type of analysis on books pushing the Palestinian narrative, and see how they fare. Like the alphabet book that says "I is for Intifada." How are Jews represented there? How do they represent the emotional Jewish ties to Jerusalem? How are the feelings of millions of Jews taken into account? 

Which side actually tries for coexistence, and which side wants to see the other be ethnically cleansed in the books meant for children? 

The books being critiqued by her show smiling Arab children, some in hijabs. Find me a single children's book about Palestine that shows a smiling child in a yarmulke or tzitzit.

Just one.

That is the comparison that needs to be made to see which side is the side of progressiveness and tolerance, and which side is both implicitly and explicitly antisemitic. 

For example, this drawing for Palestinian children contrasting Arabs and Jews is not exactly sending  tolerant message. Yet I suspect it is a message that Murad wholeheartedly endorses all children should be exposed to..


Pro-Israel books go out of their way to teach tolerance. Pro-Palestinian books do the opposite. FAIR promotes the former as racist and doesn't want you to look at the latter.

FAIR isn't fair, and this article is exhibit A.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

The latest Arab Youth Survey indicates that as much as we would love to believe that access to the Internet has moderated the majority of Arab youth, it still isn't true.

Far more Arab youth blames the Ukraine war on the US and NATO than on Russia.

China, Turkey and Russia are considered their top three allies, while 88% say that Israel is an enemy of the Arab world, more than any other non-Arab country:




29% say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the biggest obstacle facing the Middle East, behind cost of living and unemployment, but ahead of corruption.




9% feel that Israel has the most influence on the Arab world, third place but way behind the US (but ahead of Russia, China and the UAE:)


Interestingly,  57% of the same youth say that the one country they would most want to live in is the UAE - and that is higher than it ever was before. Meaning that the Abraham Accords does not negatively affect Arab youths' opinions of the UAE - perhaps the opposite.

It is a shame that the survey results do not break down the Palestinian youth answers to specific questions. 






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, September 23, 2022



Mahmoud Abbas is trying very hard to look like a statesman in New York this week, including his anti-Israel speech he is giving today. And the media for the most part plays their role of treating him with the respect due to the head of a real country.

But among his own people, Abbas is reviled.

In the latest PCPSR poll, we learn:

Level of satisfaction with the performance of president Abbas stands at 26% and dissatisfaction at 71%. Level of satisfaction with Abbas stands at 26% in the West Bank and 26% in the Gaza Strip. (And this is an improvement over three months ago!)

A vast majority of 74% of the public want president Abbas to resign while only 23% want him to remain in office. Demand for Abbas’ resignation stands at 73% in the West Bank and 77% in the Gaza Strip.

If new presidential elections were held today and only two were nominated, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, only 46% would participate and from among those, Abbas would receive 38% and Haniyeh 53% of the votes.

The only theoretical candidate that excites people is Marwan Barghouti, the terrorist in Israeli prison convicted in five murders.

 But Palestinians do support Abbas for one thing he did. An overwhelming majority agree with his use of the word "holocausts" to describe how Israel has treated Palestinians. 

Meaning that they might hate everything else about him, but they approve his antisemitism.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Friday, September 16, 2022

The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has released its 2022 survey on Muslims in America

The survey shows that Jews are the one faith group that is most tolerant towards Muslims. 

Even more than Muslims themselves!

The Discrimination and Islamophobia section of the survey shows that in their Islamophobia Index, which averages to responses for several questions about Muslims,  Jews were by far the most tolerant - and Muslims looked at themselves in a worse light than the average American does.

17% of Jews were considered Islamophobic according to this index, while 25% of the general public did - and 26% of Muslims themselves.

The findings on the specific questions that make up the definition of Islamophobia are even more interesting.

While only 9%  of Jews say Muslims are prone to violence, 24% of Muslims say that - the highest faith group to believe that by far and nearly triple that of the general public.


For the question of "Do you agree that most Muslims living in the United States are hostile to the United States," again the highest score went to Muslims themselves - 19% - compared to only 4% for Jews.

Nearly identical results came from the question of whether respondents agree that US Muslims are less civilized than other Americans.


Another result of the survey is that white Muslims are far more Islamophobic than Muslims of color - and it is getting worse.



ISPU tries to spin these results, saying that the Muslims who are self-hating have been brainwashed by mainstream Islamophobic tropes. 
Endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own community is referred to as internalized oppression, or internalized bigotry or racism in the case of a racial group. ... Some studies on internalized racism have surprisingly found that endorsing negative stereotypes about one’s own group is associated with a higher locus of control. This suggests that internalized prejudice may actually be a defense mechanism against the trauma of bigotry at the hands of the dominant group by agreeing with those in power but believing one has the choice (locus of control) to not be like those tropes. 
That would make sense if the mainstream was indeed bigoted - one could expect a small percentage of the minority group to be influenced by the majority. But as theses result show, the majority isn't Islamophobic compared to Muslims themselves, which makes that theory nonsensical. 

One other point: if a Muslim organization has no problem noting that over a quarter of US Muslims are Islamophobic by their definition, why is it considered so awful for Jews to point out that some Jews are antisemitic?




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, September 11, 2022




This video shows, for a painful 100 seconds, how happy Palestinians were upon hearing that thousands of Americans had been murdered by Al Qaeda 21 years ago today.


But Palestinian support for Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and suicide bombings remained high even as Arab countries turned against them.

This Pew Research graphic shows that Palestinians were more enthusiastic about Al Qaeda than citizens of any Arab country, and while their support waned over the years, they continued to be the most extreme supporters of terror among Arabs in the decade following 9/11.




In 2014, the most recent poll I can find, Palestinian Arabs were most supportive among world Muslims towards suicide bombings - by far.



And even then, three years after Osama Bin Laden was killed, a huge proportion of Palestinians continued to support Al Qaeda - more than any other Muslims:


One doesn't see questions about suicide bombings and support for Bin Laden being asked by international pollsters any more, possibly because they make Palestinians look so bad. But even this year, a majority of Palestinians support "armed attacks" against Israeli civilians, and there is little reason to think that they distinguish between "martyrdom operations" and any other attacks on Jewish civilians. 

Bin Laden lives on - in Palestinians.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

One of the best polls of Palestinians has been that of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where they ask Palestinians questions that Palestinian pollsters tend to avoid.

The most recent poll finds that East Jerusalem Arabs have become far more moderate in the past two years. 

Today, half (48%) of the city’s Palestinian residents say that, if they had to make a choice, they would prefer to become citizens of Israel, rather than of a Palestinian state. From 2017 to early 2020, that figure hovered around just 20%.  Today, only a minority (43%) of East Jerusalemites say they would pick Palestine; while the remainder (9%) would opt for Jordanian citizenship.  Among West Bankers, the comparable figures are Israel, 25%; Palestine, 65%; Jordan, 10%.

Significantly, this sharp contrast is now evident on other, related questions as well.  For instance, in East Jerusalem, 63% agree at least “somewhat” with this purposely provocative statement: “It would be better for us if we were part of Israel, rather than in Palestinian Authority or Hamas ruled lands.”  In the West Bank, the corresponding figure is less than half that proportion (28%).
Interestingly, the "Jordanian option" which had not even been a consideration at all in previous polls has become significant. 

Another major divergence between Jerusalem Arabs and West Bank Arabs was the question,  “I hope some day we can be friends with Israelis, since we are all human beings after all.” 54% of Jerusalem Arabs agreed, compared to just 26% in the West Bank.

But when questions were phrased in emotional or religious terms, the Jerusalem Arabs were even more extreme than those in the West Bank:

 For example, 23% of East Jerusalem Palestinians agree “strongly” with this assertion:  “I sincerely worry that Israel wants to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and harm our religion.”  An additional 46% agree “somewhat” with that sentiment.  Nineteen percent agree “strongly” that “we should demand Palestinian rule over all of Jerusalem, east and west, rather than share or divide any part of it with Israel”; an additional 45% offer lukewarm agreement, given that maximalist formulation.  Finally, this deliberately inflammatory hypothetical arouses the harshest responses:  “When I think about the occupation, I get so angry that I wish all Israelis would disappear.”  A large minority (41%) “strongly” agree, with another 33% “somewhat” agreeing as well.  
Support for violence across the board has lessened somewhat since the last poll in February 2020, but it is still quite significant - and under-reported. 

In the West Bank, there is little distinction between Israelis, "settlers" and security personnel. 53% support and 37% oppose attacks on Jews in Israel, and a similar percentage support attacking Israelis in the West Bank as well as Israeli soldiers or police. 

But a significant percentage - 23% - also support attacking tourists in Israel. 

And pure antisemitism is evident in the response to the question of whether it is good or bad to attack Jews anywhere in the world. 22% say it is good - half the number from 2020, but still more than one in five West Bank Arabs want to see Jews killed everywhere. 

This poll didn't include Gaza, which typically would be more extreme, meaning that at least a quarter of Palestinians support murdering Jews worldwide.

See if you can find that little fact reported in the mainstream media.




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Sunday, July 10, 2022




CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, released a poll of American Muslims ahead of the midterm elections.

The poll asked them, "What are the most important, Muslim-related, foreign policy issues to you in this election year?" They could choose as many topics as they wanted.

Here were the results:

Israeli occupation of Palestine 90.5%
Chinese Genocide of Uyghur Muslims 87.4%
Oppression of Muslims in India 80.8% 
Burma Genocide of Rohingya Muslims 75.8% 
Starvation in Afghanistan 67.4% 
Discrimination against Muslims in France 61.9% 
Conflict in Yemen 59.6% 
Conflict in Syria 54.5% 
Indian occupation of Jammu and Kashmir 37.5% 
Civil war in Libya 31.6% 
Security in Somalia 29.1% 
Presidential Coup in Tunisia 24.2%

Tens of thousands of Muslims have been killed in Myanmar (Burma), Libya, and Yemen, and hundreds of thousands in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been ethnically cleansed from Myanmar. A million Muslims are incarcerated in China. A million Muslims are on the verge of starvation in Afghanistan. Yet when American Muslims only have to check a box to say they are concerned about these issues, they claim that the Palestinian issue is more important to them than direct physical threats to the lives of millions of Muslims. 

Moreover, look at the questions they didn't ask: Palestinians are discriminated against in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are still refugees from Syria, living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan. But these issues are so unimportant to CAIR that they are not even asked about! 

The American Muslims polled don't care about Palestinians - unless their oppression can be blamed on Jews.

These priorities cannot be explained by concern about Muslim lives, or by concern about Palestinian lives. 

The only explanation for this twisted set of priorities is Muslim American antisemitism. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

The latest Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll shows that in the aftermath of a new terror wave, more Palestinians support killing Jews.

The poll, taken last week, finds:

When asked about support for specific policy choices to break the current deadlock, 55% support a return to armed confrontations and intifada.

A majority of 59% say that the armed attack inside Israel carried out by Palestinians unaffiliated with known armed groups contributes to the national interest of ending the occupation.

A majority of 56%  support murderous attacks similar to those carried out in April and May inside Israel.

When asked about the most effective means of ending the  occupation and building an independent state, 50% chose "armed struggle," 22% negotiations, and 21% popular resistance. 

Other interesting findings:

The vast majority (78%) believe the Qur'an contains a prophecy on the demise of the State of Israel.

The largest percentage (33%) says Hamas is most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people while 23% think Fatah under president Abbas is.

In an election for president today between Abbas and Hamas leader Haniyeh, Haniyeh would win handily, 55% to 33%.

Only 28% support a two state solution, 69% oppose. But based on this video done recently, the 69% do not want a binational state with equal rights for all: virtually all want a single Arab state.






Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

  • Tuesday, September 06, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
In the latest PCPO poll, released yesterday, this question was asked of Palestinian Arabs:

Which, in your opinion, is the preferable option for the future of Palestine? Is it going to the United Nations for the recognition of the Palestinian state without concluding a peace agreement with Israel, or going back to the negotiation table with the Israelis for the sake of a permanent peace with them and then resort to the UN?

59.3% said it was better to go back to the negotiating table with Israel; only 35.4% said going to the UN was preferable.

Another interesting finding is that a plurality of Palestinian Arabs oppose "holding huge peaceful demonstrations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem with the aim as to overrun the barriers and close the roads against the Israeli army and the settlers after the proclamation of the recognition of the State of Palestine in the coming September" - 48.8% vs. 41.5%.

And given a three way choice:

Some people say that Palestinians should hold huge peaceful demos that overrun the barriers and close the roads against the Israeli army and the settlers with the aim to force the Israelis to withdraw from the territories of the State of Palestine after the proclamation of the UN-resolution recognizing the State of Palestine, whilst others say Palestinians should carry out violent actions against the Israeli army and the settlers, and a third group of people is in favor of going back to the peaceful negotiations with the Israeli government. Which of these three opinions is the closest to yours?

25.9% support demonstrations
15.2% support violence
53.4% support negotiations

Then again, when did anyone accuse the Palestinian Arab leadership of listening to their people?

Friday, July 22, 2011

Yesterday, J-Street came out with a poll saying that Jews are still more pro-Obama than leaning towards Republican candidates, even though that support has eroded.

The general outline of that result is probably mostly true, but another of the survey questions - regarding J-Street itself - shows how the wording of a question can influence the answer.

Here is how the press release described the poll result that J-Street clearly wanted to uncover:
Efforts to prevent Jewish critics of Israeli government policy from participating in Jewish community events directly contradict the beliefs and values of most American Jews. When asked if groups like the JCC or Jewish Federations should allow Jewish organizations that publicly criticize certain Israeli government policies to participate in events sponsored by the Jewish community, 79 percent responded that they should allow these groups to participate.

This belief holds steady (77 percent) when presented with J Street’s perspective about  opposing policies like settlement expansion in the West Bank and with J Street’s critics’ perspective that J Street’s criticism undermines Israeli security and that “just calling itself pro Israel does not make J Street pro-Israel.” Notably, these results are very similar among Jews who belong to a synagogue (74 percent think J Street should be allowed to participate) and Jews who do not belong to a synagogue (79 percent think J Street should be allowed to participate).
Do 77% of Jews believe that J-Street belongs inside the "big tent" of Jewish organizations?

Here's how the general question was phrased:

Do you think Jewish community organizations such as local Jewish Federations and JCCs should allow or not allow Jewish organizations that publicly criticize some Israeli government policies to participate in events sponsored by Jewish community organizations?

Should allow 79%
Should not allow 21%
It is a generic question, designed to appeal to Jewish sense of fairness. Of course everyone supports multiple viewpoints and of course it is possible to be critical of specific Israeli policies while remaining inside the mainstream of the American Jewish community. But at some point, "criticism" goes beyond the pale - and the survey question does not attempt to identify where that line is.

On J-Street specifically, the question bias is stark:
As you may know, there is a Jewish organization called J Street which calls itself the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.

J Street supports Israel and its right to defend itself, and believes that it is acceptable to criticize some Israeli government policies, such as expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Opponents of J Street say that an organization which criticizes Israeli policy undermines Israeli security, and that just calling itself pro-Israel does not make J Street pro-Israel.

Do you think Jewish community organizations such as local Jewish Federations and JCCs should allow or not allow J Street to participate in events sponsored by Jewish community organizations?

Should allow 77%
Should not allow 23%
Keep in mind that most American Jews are not so involved in politics to have ever heard of J-Street, or to care too much about it. So the first sentence subconsciously defines J-Street for them by saying it is "pro-Israel, pro-peace" - concepts that everyone agrees with. That sentence frames the next two sentences.

The next sentence states, as a fact, that J-Street supports Israel and its right to defend itself - without defining what that means. They mention one specific Israeli policy they disagree with, but don't say (for example) that they support the US cutting aid to Israel based on that position.

The third sentence does not state anything as a fact - but as a claim. Opponents say something, but it is not established as fact the way the previous sentence described J-Street. So while J-Street is defined by the question itself as being pro-Israel, it says that its opponents only say that it is not.

Not only that,  the characterization of what J-Street's opponents believe is framed as a generic attack against any organization that is even mildly critical of Israel, subtly putting J-Street in a broad category of a group of organizations that criticize some specific aspects of Israeli policy while inherently being broadly supportive of Israeli policy.

Now that the question has thoroughly defined the parameters, the person being surveyed is primed to answer the way J-Street desires.

To make it clearer, here is another way the question could have been phrased:
As you may know, there is a Jewish political organization called J-Street.

J-Street claims to support Israel and its right to defend itself and says that it only criticizes some Israeli government policies. It would like the US to reduce aid to Israel unless Israel adheres to this American political organization's concept of what Israel should do.

Opponents of J-Street note that J-Street has lobbied for the US not to veto anti-Israel UN resolutions, and that both the Israeli public and government are overwhelmingly against J-Street's political positions as being dangerous to Israeli security.

Do you think Jewish community organizations such as local Jewish Federations and JCCs should allow or not allow J-Street to participate in events sponsored by Jewish community organizations?

How do you think that American Jews would answer that question?

J-Street's biased question could even be used to describe "Jewish" groups that support boycotting Israel. Which shows even more starkly how badly that question was written, and how you cannot believe survey results based on press releases by the organizations that issued the survey to begin with.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

  • Thursday, July 21, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
The full results from the TIP poll reported on last week have been released. 

For a lot of the questions, Palestinian Arabs show little enthusiasm. For example, while most support a unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN, most only "somewhat" support it.

They generally tend to be against sharia law as the main source for legislation, but feel Turkey is too secular.

They are not thrilled with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Bashar Assad, and Hamas support is tepid at best. But their nostalgia for terrorists of the past is very high, saying they have very warm feelings towards Yasir Arafat, Abu Jihad and Dalal Mughrabi. The lowest marks in that question went to Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel, Jews, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and Shimon Peres.

Only19% felt good about a two state solution with a Jewish state and Arab state living side by side, while 59% liked the idea of one Arab state instead.

They support unity between Hamas and Fatah, even with the opinion that it would make peace less likely.

They tend to believe that the "nakba day" incidents in the Golan were not staged by Assad, but legitimately showed Palestinian Arab desire to "return."

While they say that peace with Israel is possible, most do not believe that Israel will exist in 25 years with a Jewish majority.

As previously reported, 67% of those who expressed an opinion stated that "The real goal should be to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state."

Given the choice of these pairs of statements:

Israel has a permanent right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people - 7%
Over time Palestinians must work to get back all the land for a Palestinian state - 84%

I can accept permanently a two-state solution with one a homeland for the Palestinian people living side-by-side with Israel, a homeland for the Jewish people. - 30%
The real goal should to start with a two state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state - 66%

Homosexuality should be punished by law - 82%
Homosexuality should not be punished by law - 14%

A plurality, but not a majority, thought the massacre in Itamar was wrong.

A majority agree with naming streets after suicide bombers.

A majority support teaching songs in school about hating the Jews.

79% of those who expressed an opinion say it is right to deny that Jews have a long history in Jerusalem going back thousands of years, while 90% thought it was wrong to deny that "Palestinians" have an equally long history in Jerusalem.

89% oppose a Palestinian Arab state being demilitarized.

A majority oppose releasing Gilad Shalit, and a majority support his kidnapping.

"President Obama said there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the
Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. Do you accept or reject
that concept?" 61% rejected it.

92% say Jerusalem should be capital of "Palestine" only;only3% say it should be capital for both states.

A plurality thought that a third intifada (which most oppose) would be violent.

73% believe this statement from the Hamas Covenant:: "The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."


80% believe this statement from the Hamas Covenant: "For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah's victory prevails. "

62% believe in this Hamas statement as well: "When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the (Islamic) Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters."

Some of their other answers seem to indicate an aversion to armed attacks and a desire for peace, but this desire is only when they think that there is no choice. The answers indicate that in their ideal world, there would never be compromise and Jews should have no political rights in the Middle East.

The corollary is that as long as they believe that Israel is strong, they are more likely to seek peace (or, more accurately, detente); if they believe that Israel will not exist for long, they are more likely to keep waiting for it to weaken rather than make peace now.

While they do not come off as supporting terrorism as much as in other previous polls, they also are shown to have very little desire to accommodate living alongside Israel if they believe that there is any other option.

Which means that the best kind of peace possible is one where Israel is unquestioningly strong and understood that it will not collapse. The belief that terror, or politics, might weaken Israel is the very formula to ensure that peace will never happen. Every Israeli concession that is perceived as a defeat pushes peace that much further away.

This is an extraordinarily important poll, one that goes way beyond others in ferreting out the true feelings that Palestinian Arabs have. It should be required reading by every politician, pundit and journalist who want to know the truth about how Palestinian Arabs think, rather than believing the pre-digested lies that are presented by those with an agenda.

Monday, July 18, 2011

  • Monday, July 18, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
As I predicted, the mainstream media has all but ignored the poll that the Jerusalem Post reported on last week that shows that most Palestinian Arabs want to destroy Israel - using the "two state solution" as a first stage towards that goal. The poll also denies Jewish history and shows that 92% are against even sharing Jerusalem as the capital of two states.

The intransigence is hard to miss in this survey - but the few times that the non-Zionist media mentions the poll, it downplayed or ignored the major results altogether.

Ha'aretz, while it mentioned the results briefly, buried the poll in the end of a story about how the Palestinian Arabs do not want a new intifada.

The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood, also at the very end of a longer article, purposefully ignored the parts of the poll that show that everything she reports is wrong, and instead reported it this way:
A recent opinion survey carried out in Gaza and the West Bank by the respected US pollster Stanley Greenberg found that at the top of the priority list for Palestinians were jobs, healthcare, water shortages and education. Mass protests against Israel, and even pursuing peace negotiations, came way down. Asked to choose, two-thirds favoured diplomatic engagement with Israel over violence.

Time magazine's Karl Vick, in a blog entry, mentioned one of the unpalatable results but did all he could to minimize it:
But by the same 2 to 1 margin they also oppose the two-state solution that's been the stated goal of negotiations. Most prefer ending up with a single state, in which Palestinians presumably would outnumber Jewish Israelis. The poll numbers shift some (to 44 percent positive) when the question becomes whether they "will accept a two-state solution."
Which is of course still a majority against a two state solution. But that is not his focus:
The most striking finding, though, was Palestinians' focus on daily life. Job creation was cited by 83 percent of West Bank residents asked what Abbas should make his top two priorities, followed (at 36 percent) by expansion of health care services and ending chronic water shortages.
AFP also reported on the poll, although practically no news outlets reproduced their article. Their version is equally guilty of hiding the truth, however, completely ignoring the parts about destroying Israel and highlighting the economic issues.

Outside of right-wing and explicitly Zionist news media (Commentary, a New York Post blog, Hot Air) these were the only mentions of this survey I could find.

The mentions by Time and The Guardian show that the mainstream media is quite aware that the poll exists and what it says. They read the  Jerusalem Post. But it proves that years of their lazy assumptions, their self-righteous op-eds, and their insufferable smugness at pretending to be Middle East experts are all completely wrong - and they cannot abide reporting any facts that contradict their cherished beliefs.

This is more than media bias. This is a scandal.

The Israel Project should release the raw poll results tomorrow, from what I hear. It will be most interesting to see how the media reacts to, or ignores, the full findings.

(h/t Kramerica, CAMERA)

Friday, July 15, 2011

  • Friday, July 15, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
This poll disproves everything you read about the Middle East in the mainstream media.

From JPost:
Only one in three Palestinians (34 percent) accepts two states for two peoples as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, was conducted in partnership with the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Israel Project, an international nonprofit organization that provides journalists and leaders with information about the Middle East.

Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.

Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

When given a quote from the Hamas Charter about the need for battalions from the Arab and Islamic world to defeat the Jews, 80% agreed. Seventy-three percent agreed with a quote from the charter (and a hadith, or tradition ascribed to the prophet Muhammad) about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees.

But only 45% said they believed in the charter’s statement that the only solution to the Palestinian problem was jihad.

The survey’s more positive findings included that only 22% supported firing rockets at Israeli cities and citizens and that two-thirds preferred diplomatic engagement over violent “resistance.”

Among Palestinians in general 65% preferred talks and 20% violence. In the West Bank it was 69-28%, and in Gaza, 59- 32%.
This poll is completely at odds with the world's assumptions of a Palestinian Arab people who desire peace with Israel - assumptions that are shaped by media that reports what journalists want to be true rather than what actually is.

If Western leaders understood this survey, they would know that the unilateral declaration of a state planned for September is anything but a peaceful move. They would know that real peace is literally impossible and that "compromise" is not in the Palestinian Arab vocabulary. They would know that any move at the UN makes war more likely, not less.

They would know that those right-wing Israeli extremists were exactly right.

The "two state solution" that other polls seem to find PalArab support for is a Trojan horse. Yet any Zionist who points that out is marginalized as an extremist in the media, while journalists fawn over those who have rosier, and ultimately false, interpretations. Only rarely do polls frame the questions in ways that expose the true feelings of the Palestinian Arab public.

Ha'aretz, one of the worst offenders of the myth that Palestinian Arabs want peaceful coexistence, buried the poll findings at the very end of an article about how little the Palestinian Arabs want a new intifada, and spun it appropriately:

In another measure of the Palestinian mood, an opinion poll commissioned by the group The Israel Project, which dispenses information to journalists and others about Israel and the Middle East, showed that about 65 percent of Palestinians polled said they thought now was the time for diplomatic contacts, while 30 percent saw the current period as the time for violent resistance. On the other hand, only 34 percent favored a two-state solution involving a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state. Furthermore, 66 percent favored a two-state solution as only a first step to be followed by a Palestinian state replacing Israel.
Most of the media won't bother to spin this very important poll the way Ha'aretz does. They'll just ignore it altogether. After all, it is embarrassing to admit that your entire worldview is horribly wrong, and if there is a choice of avoiding embarrassment or telling the truth, the mainstream media does not have a good track record of doing the latter.

Don't expect to see a Thomas Friedman column about this story. After all, he personally spends time with handpicked Palestinian Arabs who speak perfect English when he visits the Middle East a couple of times a year. He knows the pulse of PalArab society better than any silly old Zionist-backed survey. Which is a better story - an interview with people you choose who might be in the minority but who you already know agree with your viewpoints, or boring numbers?

(h/t Zach N)

Thursday, May 19, 2011

  • Thursday, May 19, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
A new Pew Global attitudes poll reveals once again how those "peace loving" Palestinian Arabs really think.

If you judge how worthy people are to deserve a state by how they feel about violence and Islamism, then the Palestinian Arabs are pretty much the least deserving people in the Middle East.

Let's start off with a quick comparison of two answers:




28% of Palestinian Arabs have a favorable opinion of Al Qaeda, and only 18% of President Obama

And Hezbollah rates higher among Palestinian Arabs than any other Arabs. 



A plurality of Palestinian Arabs sympathize with Islamic fundamentalists - and a quarter of Israeli Arab (Muslims)  agree.



A new state of Palestine will, right off the bat, hate America. A whopping 80% of Palestinian Arabs have an unfavorable view towards the US. 





Over a third of PalArabs want a nation that adheres strictly to Shari'a law, and 30% more want it to be influenced by Islamic law. (Jordan's and Egypt's numbers in this question are very troubling for those who want to see a true Arab Spring.)


No surveyed people support Islamic fundamentalists more than Palestinian Arabs, except for Pakistan.

Comparing the answers from Jordan and Egypt to the previous two questions makes it clear that in those countries, people do not define "fundamentalist" as equivalent to " strict adherence to Sharia law." This is something to remember when people claim that those nations do not embrace fundamentalism. 


Hamas' popularity has gone down in the past few years, especially in Gaza, but the movement is still a major force.


No one loves Hezbollah more than PalArabs.


Fully two thirds of all Palestinian Arabs believe that suicide terrorism is often or sometimes justified, making them unique among all people in continuing to embrace that form of what they call "resistance." No other country showed a rate of approval of suicide bombing that was even close to that of the "moderate" Palestinian Arabs. 

And while most Muslim countries have exhibited a steep decline in approval for suicide bombs over the years, the Palestinian Arab enthusiasm for that particularly gruesome method of killing civilians has stayed relatively steady.



So when we look at whether "Palestine" is ready for statehood, should we trust the World Bank's arcane justifications or should we look at whether the country would contribute or detract from world peace?

As it stands, it is clear that "Palestine" will not make the world a more peaceful place. Quite the contrary.

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