Majority Supports Cutting Aid to Israel, Egypt

By Ella Bancroft

A study of American public attitudes toward foreign aid released Jan. 22 by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland showed a wide gap between existing foreign aid patterns and popular desire. Eighty percent of 811 randomly selected adults polled between Jan. 12 and 15 said "the U.S. should be willing to share at least a small portion of its wealth with those in the world who are in great need." This attitude was shared by supporters of both parties, with 78 percent of Republicans in agreement.

"Programs that emphasize helping the poor and needy were quite popular," PIPA reported. Support for specific programs included: child survival programs, 91 percent; Peace Corps, 90 percent; humanitarian relief, 87 percent; environmental aid to poor countries, 79 percent; development assistance to poor countries, 75 percent; and family planning, 74 percent.

Support for "using foreign aid to maintain U.S. strategic allies and bases around the world has become quite soft," the report said. Told how much the U.S. is spending on specific countries, 56 percent wanted to cut aid to Israel and Egypt, 52 percent wanted to cut military aid in general, and 37 percent wanted to cut aid to Greece and Turkey.

Likud Sours U.S. Public On Golan Deployment

In an effort to torpedo land-for-peace negotiations between Israel's Labor coalition government and Syria, Israel's opposition Likud party and its powerful American Jewish supporters are seeking to develop a ground swell of congressional and U.S. public opposition to the stationing of U.S. peacekeepers in the Golan Heights.If a deal with Syria is reached, the Labor government is expected to soften the opposition to an Israeli withdrawal by the security-obsessed Israeli public by advocating such an American deployment to ensure that the area would remain demilitarized after a return of the Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty.

Stalking horse for the Likud effort has been former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney, Jr., whose non-profit Center for Security Policy has used the issue to increase its annual budget dramatically. In a Jan. 10 article in The Washington Times, Gaffney reported on results of a poll commissioned by his organization and conducted by the Republican-oriented Luntz Research Company. The survey of 1,000 American adults found 58 percent opposed to an American deployment on the Golan Heights, of whom 34 percent described themselves as "strongly opposed." By contrast, some 35 percent favored such a deployment, of whom only 11 percent described themselves as "strongly in favor."

Of the majority opposed to the deployment, 35 percent said they would feel differently if non-military U.S. government personnel were used instead of members of the U.S. military, while 56 percent of the opponents said they still would disapprove of a Golan deployment. Of those favoring the deployment, 44 percent said they would reverse their position if they believed "U.S. military personnel would probably be attacked by terrorists or be caught up in renewed fighting between Syria and Israel in the future."

Although both the U.S. administration of President Bill Clinton and the Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin have pointed out that any speculation on such a deployment is premature in the absence of an actual Syrian-Israeli agreement, the figures nevertheless reflect continuing negative sentiment among Americans. In a Nov. 8 election-day exit poll conducted for Middle East Quarterly, Fabrizio, McLaughlin pollsters found 64.3 percent of American respondents opposed to a U.S. Golan deployment compared to 17.9 percent in favor. Middle East Quarterly was founded in 1994 by Daniel Pipes, who frequently reflects the viewpoints of Israeli hard-liners.

Rabin Support Slipping in Israel

An opinion poll published in the Tel Aviv daily Ma'ariv on Jan. 24, two days after a Palestinian suicide bombing killed 20 Israeli soldiers and one civilian, showed that if elections were held now 50 percent of the respondents would vote for Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu and 28 percent would vote for Labor leader Yitzhak Rabin.

This was a stunning reversal for Rabin since a poll by Israel's Motagim Agency for Market Research and Public Opinion published Jan. 6 in Ma'ariv. Asked then how they would vote "if elections were held today," 25 percent said they would vote for Netanyahu and 23 percent said they would vote for Rabin. Even those figures showed a sharp decline for Rabin in comparison with those in an August 1994 poll in which 32 percent of respondents said they would re-elect Rabin and only 18 percent chose Netanyahu. Labor presently holds an 11-seat lead over Likud and the Labor-led coalition governs with a one-vote majority.

A mid-November survey by Israeli pollster Mina Tsemach had found that while Rabin personally was slightly more popular than Likud leader Netanyahu, support for a coalition of right-wing and religious parties was significantly higher than for the ruling Labor-Meretz coalition government.

Subsequently, Israeli pollster Hanoch Smith conducted a poll of 500 Israelis on Dec. 27 and 28 that showed if new elections were held Likud would win a five-seat lead over Labor in the Israeli Knesset. Although his poll showed "an underlying decline of popularity for Labor and its leadership," Smith said, "this is simply a protest vote. If Israelis think things are going badly, as they are now, especially in terms of personal security, Israelis give expression to a high degree of frustration and this works against the government."

Smith also polled Israelis after an Israeli military court in Jenin sentenced Hamas member Sa'id Badarna to death for participation in bus bombings early in 1994 in Afula, in which seven Israelis died, and in Hadera, in which five Israelis were killed. Between 60 and 70 percent of Israelis favored the death penalty for terrorists, Smith reported.

The Montagim Agency poll also showed 54 percent of the Israelis surveyed were opposed to halting settlement construction, while 39 percent supported a freeze on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

Palestinian Opinion Divides Along Generational Lines

A poll of 1,082 Palestinians over 18 years of age conducted between Dec. 29 and 31 showed continued support for Yasser Arafat and the Palestine National Authority, and also for breaking off or suspending negotiations with Israel until it complies with the Oslo Agreement. The poll by the Center for Palestine Research and Studies at Nablus of a representative demographic cross section in Gaza and the West Bank showed 31.5 percent favored the suspension option, 20.6 percent favored halting negotiations, and 38.7 percent supported continuing them.

Asked to evaluate the PNA performance 8.8 percent said excellent, 22.6 percent said good, 29.6 percent said average, 15.6 percent said weak and 3.1 percent said bad. Gaza respondents gave significantly more positive evaluations than did West Bank respondents.

An overwhelming 80.9 percent of respondents favored political elections to fill the Palestinian legislative council. If the proposed law calls for a direct popular election for head of the National Authority respondents said they would vote as follows: Yasser Arafat (Fatah) 48.5 percent, Ahmed Yassin (Hamas) 18.4 percent, Haider Abdel Shafi (Independent) 8.5 percent, George Habash (PFLP) 5.8 percent, others 18.7 percent.

In addition to the Gaza-West Bank differences, all polls by the Nablus organization also show a highly visible generation gap, with older Palestinians far more supportive of a compromise peace with Israel than those just coming of age. The West Bank polls show nearly 40 percent of Palestinians 18 to 22 years of age support Islamic groups opposing the peace process. This is more than double the rate of support for the same Islamic groups by Palestinians aged 51 or older.

American Public Looking for Leadership on Bosnia

Support for the Muslim-led Bosnian government is emerging as a Republican issue, thanks to the early leadership of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS), who now is receiving support from House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Dole points out that his support for ending the arms embargo that prevents the Bosnian government from obtaining arms to defend its borders is the same policy advocated by Clinton during the 1992 election campaign. It has only been since his election that Clinton has put aside his own instinct to support the Bosnian government and deferred instead to British and French objections, based upon their traditional alliances with the Serbs, dating back to both World War I and World War II.

Yet strong foreign policy leadership pays dividends for U.S. presidents. Clinton gained seven percentage points in public opinion polls after he launched American cruise missiles at the Iraqi Defense Ministry in Baghdad in June 1994, on the assumption that that was where the planning was done for a foiled plot to assassinate George Bush during the former U.S. president's visit to Kuwait last year. Clinton received a second upward jolt in the polls last October, after his prompt decision to send U.S. forces to Kuwait to counter threatening moves toward that oil-rich emirate by armored units of Iraqi President Saddam Hussain's Republican Guard. Just before Saddam's move, a Los Angeles Times poll of 1,320 adults in September 1994 had shown that while 42 percent of respondents approved of Clinton's overall job performance, only 36 percent approved of his foreign policy. Among respondents, only 17 percent said that they had a good idea of the president's goals abroad.

An even lower 13 percent of respondents to a December poll by Los Angeles Times-Mirror Center pollsters Andrew Kohut and Robert Toth said they had been following events in Bosnia "very closely." (For comparison, 16 percent said they had followed the congressional debate on GATT and 41 percent said they had followed the 1994 U.S. general elections "very closely.")

However, according to Toth, U.S. public opinion on Bosnia has been fairly stable. Over the past two years, the question "should the U.S. get involved in Bosnia?" has drawn responses of 50 to 60 percent against involvement and 30 to 40 percent for it. Throughout the now nearly three-year-old war the U.S. public, like the media, has shown significantly more sympathy for the beleaguered Muslim-led Bosnian government than for the Bosnian Serbs. U.S. public support for more intensive NATO airstrikes against the Serbs has risen as the Serbs have mistreated U.N. peacekeepers and resisted peace measures.

Robert Kull of the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) told Christian Science Monitorstaff writer Peter Grier in mid-December that when poll questions present Americans with more information about Bosnia, the correspondents support more action there. Kull said 56 percent responded positively when asked: "Would you favor or oppose sending a very large force of ground troops from various countries, including the U.S., to occupy contested areas and forcibly stop ethnic cleansing?" Grier concludes that, overall, Americans support military action where America's vital interests "are clearly at stake, as with Gulf oil." He adds that Americans also are supportive of U.S. intervention where "it appears that humanitarian assistance can be given without becoming mired in conflict."

Regarding intervention in Bosnia, Grier quotes American University professor of international relations Joshua Goldstein's comment that the public would be more supportive "if there were more leadership on the part of the president."

Christian Coalition and U.S. Jews Agree Only on Israel

National exit polls following the Nov. 8, 1994 election found that Jewish voters still vote overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates. Initial polls indicated that only 14 percent of the Jewish vote went to Republican candidates, but follow-up polls by the Voter News Service later put the figure at 22 percent. Orthodox Jews, who constitute a small minority within the overall U.S. Jewish community, are more likely to vote for Republicans than are Reform, Conservative or self-described "unaffiliated" Jews, but the Jewish community as a whole gave 78 percent of its votes to Democrats.

Ironically, perhaps the only non-Jewish bloc of voters who can be counted upon consistently to support U.S. aid to Israel are members of the Christian Coalition. Yet, according to Christian Coalition communications director Mike Russell, "69 percent of the religious conservatives voted for Republicans seeking House seats, 68 percent for Republicans in the Senate and 71 percent for Republicans in gubernatorial races." Thus, according to Russell, about 6 percent of the votes received by typical Republican candidates came from the religious right.

The coincidence that America's strongest supporters of Israel are found among the two groups whose votes otherwise are at opposite extremes of the American political spectrum rises from the belief by some Christian Coalition members that only when all Jews gather in Jerusalem will Armageddon occur, followed by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Concomitant with this unique association of the modern state of Israel with Old and New Testament prophecy is the belief that Jews then will have to accept Christ or be eternally damned. This makes Israel's principal supporters within America's Christian community the only organized group in American life actively working for the end of Judaism or, in contemporary political shorthand, America's only major bloc of "anti-Semites." As always, politics makes strange bedfellows.