Why Shamir Lost and Bush Won

By Richard H. Curtiss

"Bashing the Israelis—and Americans who support Israel—proved popular; polls appear to show that most of the public backs the president."

—Lally Weymouth, Washington Post, Oct. 3, 1991

"Jews normally vote about 25 percent Republican. This might drop that to 10 percent. So what? It isn't enough to worry about."

—Mark Siegel, Democratic political consultant quoted in Los Angeles Times, Sept. 30, 1991

History demonstrates that a US president carries the American public with him on any major foreign policy initiative if he explains it carefully, and frequently. President George Bush just proved this, again.

First he asked Israel to delay submission of its request for $10 billion in US government loan guarantees until after the convening of a Middle East peace conference. When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, predictably, ignored the request, Bush asked Congress to delay consideration of the request for 120 days.

Despite a full court press by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most feared and hated lobby in Washington, and nasty personal slurs against Bush by members of the Israeli cabinet, Bush totally routed his opponents within two weeks.

AIPAC's champions in the Democrat dominated Senate and House didn't even bring the guarantees to a vote. When it was over, an ABC News poll conducted in the third week of September showed 86 percent of Americans supported the president.

That's considerably better than his already high overall-performance ratings, which hover around 70 percent. In one month, a challenge to Israel became a domestic political asset rather than a liability.

None of this should have surprised poll watchers. This magazine called it correctly in 1989. After August 1990, when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait postponed the Bush administration's inevitable showdown with Shamir, the magazine predicted Bush would confront, and easily vanquish, Shamir within months of Iraq's eviction from Kuwait.

The problem with polls is that they are distrusted by most people—even those who commission them—because they are subject to manipulation.

Timing is an important factor. When Americans were polled by Gallup during the June 1967 war in which Israel was fighting all of its Arab neighbors simultaneously, for every one who expressed basic sympathy for the Arabs, 13 sympathized with Israel.

When ABC asked a similar question in September 1982, however, right after Israel's siege of Beirut and obvious complicity in the Sabra-Shatila massacres, Americans divided evenly.

Polls also can be influenced by how the question is worded, or even the wording of questions preceding the key question. All this contributes to the well-known fact that published polls generally support the arguments of the organizations that commission them.

Only AIPAC's researchers and lobbyists were fooled.

Generally organizations or candidates commissioning a poll want to know the truth. If what they learn strengthens their case, they publish the results. If they don't like a poll's results, they suppress them.

That helps explain why the Israeli government, and its highly-paid American researchers and lobbyists who should have known better, made their disastrous decision. They demanded an unconditional increase in American aid at a time when public sentiment was running against foreign aid and the administration was bent on a land-for-peace settlement.

American Jewish organizations have been commissioning private polls probing American public opinion on all manner of matters of interest to Jews for many years. When they like the results, they release them. When not, they're generally hushed up. Since the only people who pay much attention to the published findings are Jewish, the result is a remarkable build-up of misinformation among Jews about what's on the minds of their fellow Americans.

For example, a Martilla and Kiley poll commissioned by B'nai B'rith in mid-1990 showed more Americans sympathetic to the Palestinians (33 percent) than to the Israelis (31 percent). That should have been a bombshell warning to Israel and its lobby, but it was not publicized.

Only a few months later, in December 1990, at the height of the coalition buildup in the Gulf, when Israel was obediently following orders from the United States, things turned around. More Americans sympathized with Israel (38 percent) than with the Palestinians (29 percent), many of whom were foolishly praising Saddam Hussain.

Those figures were publicized in Israel and in the US Jewish press.

When, during the actual Gulf fighting, US sympathy for Israel soared, AIPAC went public in a big way. Here are some quotes from a March 11, 1991 AIPAC release:

"US public support for Israel has reached record levels in recent weeks according to leading polling data ... (In) a New York Times /CBS poll released on January 22 ... 83 percent of those polled said US aid to Israel should either remain at current levels or be increased ... According to a January 24-25 Harris Poll, 86 percent of Americans said Israel is a 'friendly' or 'close ally' of the United States-up from 61 percent in 1988. This is the highest level ever recorded in a Harris poll. A Martilla and Kiley poll released in February found that 88 percent of Americans view Israel as a close or friendly ally ... A January 24-25 Gallup poll found that Americans sympathize with Israel over the Arab countries by an overwhelming eight to one margin—64 percent to 8 percent. This is the highest level of sympathy for Israel ever recorded in a Gallup poll—even exceeding the 56 percent (to 4 percent) after the 1967 Six Day War."

The problem with polls taken at the emotional climax of a major historic event is that they depict the situation at that moment, and nothing else. If figures before and after are suppressed, as was the case with very different poll results from those trumpeted by AIPAC, people get a very false idea of what is really happening.

Hardly anyone noticed that even while the Gulf War was underway in the first week of February 1991 a CNN/ Time magazine poll found that 63 percent of Americans thought the US should pressure Israel to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians, compared to only 28 percent who thought not. That was better than 2 to 1 for pressure on Israel.

In the end, it appears, only AIPAC's researchers and lobbyists were fooled by the pink haze they generated. The result was Israel's disastrous misstep—which tips the scale decisively in favor of the United States in all future Likud-Bush administration confrontations.

Now, after President Bush's blitzkreig victory over AIPAC, the polls are frightening for congress members who went along with it and exhilarating for members of the Bush administration. For example:

A late September Time-CNN poll showed 37 percent of Americans favored and 56 percent opposed providing loan guarantees. Asked for specifics, 34 percent of the same respondents said the loans should not be provided at all, 40 percent said they should be held up until Israel halts its settlements, and 15 percent said guarantees should be provided unconditionally. That's 5 to 1 for Bush.

A Wall Street Journal poll in the third week in September showed respondents about evenly split, 44 to 46 percent, between opposing and supporting any aid to Israel.

Of these same respondents, however, 69 percent supported the president's request to delay loan guarantees.

An early September poll conducted by the Gordon S. Black Corporation for the Arab American Institute showed 43 percent opposed to aid to Israel, 36.4 for aid with conditions, and only 9.7 percent for aid without conditions. That's 8 to 1 for Bush.

Polls also show public support for the administration's land-for-peace strategy. That same B'nai B'rith-commissioned Martilla and Kiley poll taken Feb. 4 and 5 during the Gulf war showed 58 percent in favor and 20 percent opposed to establishment of a Palestinian "homeland. " (You didn't read that in your hometown newspaper because AIPAC omitted it from its March 11 release.)

The same Wall Street Journal poll in the third week of September showed 49 percent of Americans supporting Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory and 31 percent opposed.

The AAI-commissioned poll showed that 52.9 percent of Americans favor creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while 20.8 percent oppose it. That's better than 21/2 to 1 in favor of going beyond Bush's support for Palestinian "self-determination."

In the same Gordon Black survey, 50.2 percent of Americans favored and 26.7 percent opposed Israel giving up the occupied territories for peace with the Arabs. That's nearly 2 to 1 in support of the administration's land-for-peace policy.

What it all means is that the US public clearly supported the Bush administration's position over the Shamir government's position, and that Bush's easy win only strengthened his public support.

The lessons? Polls make informative reading, but only for those who read them all. And, when it comes to a confrontation between any foreign power and any president of the United States, bet on the president.

Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.