Poll: Most Jewish Israelis back attack on Iran

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"A large majority of Israeli Jews support military action aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear facilities, according to a survey sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.

According to the poll, co-sponsored by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, a large majority of those who support a move by the army said they would maintain their support even if the Obama administration opposed it.

An overwhelming majority also said they believed close relations with the United States were essential for ensuring Israel's security.

The survey, administered by the Maagar Mochot research institute, involved 610 respondents, constituting a representative sample of Israeli Jews over the age of 18.

Asked about military action against Iran, 66 percent said they approved of it, 15 percent said they were opposed and 19 percent said they did not know. Among those who said they approved army action, 15 percent said they would change their minds if the United States opposed it, while 75 percent said they would not. The rest said they did not know or gave other answers.

Focusing on Israeli-U.S. relations in the Obama era, the survey revealed concern over possible erosion of U.S. support for Israel, and over a rapprochement between the United States and Arab countries at the expense of Israel.

Sixty percent of the respondents said they had a "positive" or "very positive' attitude toward President Obama. However, only 38 percent said they thought his attitude to Israel was friendly - in contrast to 73 percent of respondents in a 2007 poll, who defined the attitude of the previous president, George W. Bush, as friendly."

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[babylonsister]

1. Here's a different source that says otherwise...

New J Street poll: American Jews want U.S. engagement in peace process

By Eric Fingerhut · March 23, 2009

J Street has a new poll out which finds that American Jews back strong U.S. involvement in reaching a Middle East peace ageement, negative feelings toward Avigdor Lieberman and a split regarding military action in Iran.

J Street's press release is below, and the full survey can be found here.

NEW POLL: American Jews Back Active US Role in Peace Process, Obama Administration Plans for Diplomatic Engagement

WASHINGTON — A new poll released today by J Street demonstrates continued strong support among American Jews for active American engagement in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for the Obama administration’s push for assertive diplomacy in the Middle East generally.

This new poll – taken following both U.S. and Israeli elections and after the Gaza conflict – finds little movement in basic American Jewish views on Israel and the Middle East since J Street’s first poll in July of 2008. The survey finds solid support in the Jewish community for J Street’s essential proposition that peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a core Israeli and American interest and that the United States should take an active leadership role in achieving peace.

The fully survey is available online at http://www.jstreet.org/files/images/J_Street_Survey_March_2009_Final_Results.doc.

Analysis of the results can be found at http://www.jstreet.org/files/images/J_Street_Survey_Analysis_032309.doc

Edited to conform to DU's fair use policy for copyrighted material - Lithos, DU Moderator

more...

http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009/03/23/1003915/new-j-street-poll-american-jews-want-us-engagement-in-peace-process

[aquart]

7. American Jews = Israeli Jews to you?

[babylonsister]

11. Oops! No, they don't. My mistake, thanks. nt

[Jefferson23]

2. only 38% said they thought Obama's attitude to Israel was "friendly"

That is good news imo.

[aquart]

8. Hey, Hamas and Fatah need all the friends they can get.

After all, the Arab world hates their guts. Except on paper.

[virgogal]

3. No surprise there. God,what a mess.

[Sezu]

4. Those pesky Jews always standing up for themselves against

those who only want to see them driven to the sea. Go figure.

:sarcasm:

[pocoloco]

5. And vice versa.

[aquart]

9. When you deny someone the right to exist...

Should you really be surprised when they return the compliment?

[IndianaGreen]

14. More melodrama from the usual suspects

How many countries will Iran has to cross to "drive Israel to the sea." The shouts of "holocaust" are beginning to sound like our own shouts of "9-11." They are both equally tiresome!

:scared:

[soryang]

6. More threats of preemptive war

How barbaric. Doesn't Israel have single payer health care?

[LeftishBrit]

16. What has health care got to do with this?

In fact, I think that Israel *doesn't* technically have single-payer health care; but the commoner Europaean model of universal insurance, though the end product is quite similar. Anyway, we do have single payer health care, and we still joined you in pre-emptive war on Iraq. I am not sure how the two issues are related, however. Universal health care is a good thing, but the medicine hasn't yet been invented to prevent war.

[oberliner]

10. The percentage is down from two years ago

71 percent in 2007, 66 percent today.

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. Israel does not have the military capacity to carry out a successful strike against Iran

First of all there simply is no military option even if ALL 16 U.S. Intelligence agencies are wrong and Iran does in spite of all the world's leading military-intelligence expertise does have some sort of active nuclear weapons program.

The Israeli military simply does not have enough long range bombers capable of flying approximately one thousand miles and successfully attacking Iran's massive array of North Korean style deep earth, heavily fortified bunkers .

Even if the Iranian military has defied the Fatwa of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and went ahead with a nuclear weapons program.

Short of a total nuclear war there simply is no way of significantly downgrading Iran's massive array of heavily fortified deep earth tunnels where any command structure or materials for any sort of nuclear program would certainly be located.

The United States would find itself trapped into intervening given that Iran would retaliate against the U.S. presence in the Gulf. For the U.S. to continue such an attack and to make the attack at least technically successful, this would require forcing the Gulf states into granting rights to air space and facilities. Thus making the Gulf states and their oil fields, refineries, infrastructure and transport network targets of devastating Iranian retaliation. Although Iran does not have particularly sophisticated weaponry, they do have a vast array of relatively unsophisticated medium range missiles positioned in hostile and unapproachable terrain and quite capable of causing enormous and crippling damage very rapidly and choking off the Straits of Hormuz.

With Iran's massive array of short and medium range missiles, heavily embedded into hostile terrain Iran could attack the desalinization plants in the Gulf states thus causing quite a catastrophe in the heart of the production center of the most essential ingredient in the world's industrial economy. This is something they are quite capable of if they chose to do so. And they would have nothing to lose. Their missiles may not be the latest high-tech variety. But they have lots and lots of them deeply embedded in unapproachable terrain. And its only a couple of hundred miles across the Gulf. There would be little ability to defend against such an attack.

Of course Iran could attack the oil refiners and oil tankers which I suspect they could do quite effectively. Obviously Iran both could and would completely choke off the movement of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, drawing 40% of the world's oil supply to a mere trickle. Although the Gulf states would prefer to stay out of it -- if the U.S. was to push the issue I suspect they would pressure the Gulf states into cooperation at least in terms of air space and at least some use of facilities. This would give Iran every reason to retaliate against the Eastern Arabian Peninsula Gulf states. This is a fight to the death for the survival of their state.

And make no mistake about it. As much as many Iranians may want change.
They are as astoundingly nationalistic as any people have ever been. This is a society where little 13-year-old boys volunteered excitedly to run through mind fields by the tens of thousands. The ones who didn't get to go cried.

The destruction of much of the core of the world's production center for oil and the breaking of the transport mechanism for oil would likely trigger a worldwide oil crisis and send oil prices into the stratosphere thus making the current global economic collapse insolvable for decades to come. The whole world would be in massive depression when an oil crisis is combined with an already existing economic collapse - triggering even more panic - causing poverty that the Western World has not seen since World War II and the great depression.

It would takes several years if not decades for things to return things to normal.

What would it mean for the political viability of Israel, if Israel was seen in America and around the world as the ones responsible for bringing this catastrophe?

[soryang]

15. Well said and exactly right

But there is no guarantee that such a doomed prospect might not be undertaken. If Israel were to start such a conflict they could do so with cruise missiles or ballistic missiles unilaterally. Such an attack would be totally ineffectual except to start a war in which the littoral states would be attacked and the US would be drawn in, involuntarily. This is why Bismarck said of the Prussian Austrian alliance, "I wouldn't give the bones of a dead Pomeranian foot soldier for such an alliance."

[IndianaGreen]

13. Is the ADL now a polling organization?

From defenders of the Venezuelan elites to pollster, that's quite a jump from what ADL's core mission used to be.

Perhaps we should strap Abe Foxman to the first bomb that is dropped on Iran.

[oberliner]

17. Foxman and the ADL oppose military action against Iran.

Also, ADL has been conducting polls since its inception.

When has the group spoken in favor of "Venezuelan elites" ?

[anonymous171]

18. If we didn't give them so much money I wouldn't care if they did.

Both sides are absolutely nuts and frankly deserve eachother.