Today’s Haaretz surprised us with the following (apparently temporary) headline: “Haaretz Poll: Most Israelis See Obama as Fair and Friendly.” This, of course, seems to fly in the face not only of my own unscientific cab-driver canvasing, but of many other polls that have appeared in the last year as well. Yet I knew something was up when the article, after repeating the assertion that “a sweeping majority of Israelis think [Obama’s] treatment of this country is friendly and fair,” doesn’t actually tell you the numbers. In fact, after this attention-grabbing first sentence, it drops the subject entirely, going on to talk only of Israelis’ opinions about Netanyahu, building in Jerusalem, and so on — but not Obama.

What’s going on? Shmuel Rosner lets the cat out of the bag. It turns out that when asked their opinion of Obama’s attitude towards Israel, Israelis were given three choices: Hostile, Fair, Friendly. Note that “fair” here is not a positive statement but a placeholder for “neutral.” And the numbers are: Hostile: 21%; Fair: 51%; Friendly: 18%. So the poll deceives by using the word “fair” instead of “neutral,” forcing the respondent to say something positive-sounding when he may not have meant to. And then Haaretz deceives by asserting that a “sweeping majority” of Israelis see Obama as “fair and friendly.” This is, of course, ridiculous: it would be just as accurate to point out that an even more sweeping majority see him as “fair and hostile.”

By midmorning Israel time, Haaretz had scrapped the headline and moved the “sweeping majority” assertion to the third paragraph. Yet, as of this writing, they’re still using the “fair and friendly” line, and I’m sure it will be repeated all over the place in the days to come.