A new poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research surveying 800 Americans has some interesting results:

Some 59 percent of the respondents said they were Israel supporters, compared to 29 percent for the Palestinians. The poll was conducted by telephone from August 22 to 25.

This was a considerable jump in support for Israel since June, following the US president’s speech in Cairo, when the same question was asked by the same pollsters and Israel’s support was only 49 percent.

The number of Americans who think America should support Israel over the Palestinians also increased considerably over the last two months, with 63 percent saying the US should support Israel, and 24% saying it should support the Palestinians. In June, that number was 44% for Israel, and 32% for the Palestinians.

In contrast to the June data, a majority of Americans now believe that Netanyahu’s government is committed to reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians, while a majority do not believe either the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas, or Hamas, are committed to peace with Israel. According to the poll, 57% of the public believes Israel is committed to peace, and 39% said they do not think the government is committed to an agreement. In June that number was 46% saying Israel was committed to peace, and 39% saying it was not.

By contrast, only 36% of the respondents thought that the PA was committed to peace, and 30% believed Hams wanted an agreement.

Well, what could have moved public opinion so? After all, Obama has been putting all that “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel and nagging Israel round the clock for a settlement freeze. And of course, he gave that dramatic speech in Cairo that everyone — well, everyone in the White House and much of the mainstream media — said “reset” Middle East policy. Perhaps, just perhaps, the public is reacting against Obama’s harangues. And it may be that the obvious breach in U.S.-Israel relations has made Israel more sympathetic in the eyes of Americans. So rather than move the Israelis with his new tough-guy position, Obama has managed to alienate both Israeli and American public opinion on the topic.

Another explanation may be that the public sees the reaction of the Arab states, listens to Palestinian pronouncements that they will never recognize a “Jewish state,” and now views Israelis’ predicament in a more sympathetic light. (In this regard, some of the credit certainly goes to Bibi Netanyahu, who has conducted some effective public diplomacy while fending off an increasingly hostile American approach.) Under this theory, they aren’t so much reacting to Obama specifically but to the results of the U.S. “daylight” gambit that has encouraged intransigence among the very people with whom Obama is seeking to ingratiate himself. On this score, a few poll figures stand out:

In other survey findings, a majority of Americans disagree with Palestinian leaders’ position not to start negotiations until Israel halts all construction on settlements. On the contrary, by a 72%-23% margin, Americans agree with Netanyahu’s promise not to build any new settlements, while allowing Israel to accommodate for natural growth of existing settlements. As a basis for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, fully 95% of Americans agree that Palestinians need to recognize Israel’s right to exist and acknowledge its standing as a Jewish state.

Whatever the precise rationale for the shift in opinion, the results are rather stark. It seems that Obama’s Middle East policy is proving to be a bust at home, as it is in the region. So far, all Obama has managed to do is turn off all but 4 percent of Israelis, encourage the Palestinians to dig in their heels, receive rebuffs from the Arab states, light up the Syrians’ eyes with diplomatic overtures (offered without demand for behavioral changes by the Assad regime), and convince more Americans that his approach is not the way to go. All the while giving comfort to the mullahs in Iran and not much support, if any, to the Iranian protestors. All that in less than a year. Quite an accomplishment.