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Losing Ground

Greg Scoblete points out a new Rasmussen poll on Israel and highlights the public’s view of Israeli settlements, but what I find more interesting is the result to the question of whether Americans consider Israel an ally. One would think that this is a redundant question. As a matter of political and military reality, Israel […]

Greg Scoblete points out a new Rasmussen poll on Israel and highlights the public’s view of Israeli settlements, but what I find more interesting is the result to the question of whether Americans consider Israel an ally. One would think that this is a redundant question. As a matter of political and military reality, Israel is an ally of the United States. What is striking is how many people said that Israel is “somewhere in between” being an ally or an enemy: 32%.

The overall number has actually risen five points since late 2008. Even more remarkable is the sharp drop-off among younger groups, who are much less likely to perceive Israel as an ally than their elders. For voters 40 and older, a solid 63-67% affirm that Israel is an ally, but this drops to 56% among 18-29 year olds and as low as 46% among 30-39 year olds. I should add that this new poll is a poll of likely voters, while the late 2008 Rasmussen poll was a survey of adults, so the new poll ought to show more respondents saying that Israel is an ally than the earlier poll because it should be including more Republicans and right-leaning independents. Despite what those potentially misleading Gallup results were showing, Israel has actually been losing ground with the American public for the last year and a half.

There are almost as many Democrats who say “somewhere in between” (43%) as there are Democrats who say that Israel is an ally (46%). Obviously, this is not going to directly translate into changing the statements and behavior of Democratic elected representatives for the reasons I have outlined before, but it is worth noting all the same. To the extent that a broad, bipartisan consensus on Israel has existed, it is beginning to break down, and the people who have grown up with the U.S.-Israel relationship of the last thirty to forty years are the least likely to agree that Israel is an ally of the United States. That does not necessarily tell us much about what these people think U.S. policy in the region should be, but it should be a warning signal to everyone who takes the U.S.-Israel relationship status quo for granted.

None of this means that the administration is quarreling with Netanyahu’s government because it has tapped into a growing reservoir of American unease with the status quo, and it absolutely doesn’t mean that the administration isn’t going to keep taking sustained fire from Congress, lobbying groups and hard-liners in the media. In spite of the completely one-sided nature of the debate on U.S. Israel policy, this information suggests that there are fewer and fewer people persuaded by the same old rationalizations and justifications for a relationship that seems to provide less benefit to the United States than ever.

Update: A more recent comparison for the Rasmussen numbers is the August 2009 poll asking the same question. We can see that the ally response number has moved quite a lot from 63% in Dec. ’08 to 70% in August ’09 to 58% now. The “somewhere in between” number has doubled for all respondents (16% to 32%). It doubled between August and now among Republicans (up from 12% to 24%), almost tripled among Democrats (15% to 43%) and jumped thirteen points among independents. The ally number dropped fourteen points among Democrats, twelve among Republicans and nine among independents. Aside from the Biden visit and ensuing quarrel, I cannot think of anything that has happened between last August and now that would account for such large shifts. This just drives home the point I have been making that public opinion is changeable and malleable. Even relatively minor diplomatic incidents and the way they are reported on can apparently move large numbers of people to change their views of another country.

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