Rasmussen has a new poll out showing only 26 percent of American likely voters believe the United Nations General Assembly should pass a resolution affirming unilateral Palestinian independence. Thirty-four percent opposed the resolution and 38 percent thought it would hurt peace talks. Respondents were evenly split on whether the U.S. should cut UN funds in the aftermath of a UDI resolution (35/34).
These numbers are roughly in line with last June’s CNN poll, which showed only 16 percent of Americans think the United States should side with the Palestinians against Israel. To put American feelings on intransigent Palestinian nationalism into perspective, here is a list of other things in which Americans believe:
* That aliens have contacted the United States government (which is doubtful because covering up contact would require zero error by the same administrations that brought us the Katrina response and the Gunwalker program.) (37 percent)
* That reincarnation happens (25 percent, with Democrats more likely to say yes than Republicans by a full 14 points)
* That ghosts exist (32 percent)
* That they’ve personally been in the presence of a ghost; see directly above (23 percent)
* That witches can do magic (21 percent)
* That the new Adam Sandler movie Bucky Larson – current Rotten Tomatoes “fresh” rating, zero percent – is something that they “like” (34 percent)
None of that is to say Americans believe in absurd things. The point is, polling has fundamental methodological limitations. “Public opinion” simply doesn’t exist on a lot of issues. Most people don’t know or care about most things–that’s what we have representatives for–but they don’t want to appear uninformed, so they just give an answer. That’s how scholars produce studies where respondents express “strong” support or opposition to candidates and laws that don’t exist.
Add to that theoretical limitation other empirically known problems: people want to give the answers they think are socially acceptable, the answers they think pollsters want, and sometimes even the answers that are “yes.” The upshot is there’s a floor of respondents–one in five, give/take–who are willing to agree to anything if you make it general and abstract enough.
Do 60 percent of likely voters really have an opinion on the technical question of a UNGA resolution on unilateral Palestinian independence, which minimally involves weighing the Israeli backlash to Palestinians pocketing two decades of concessions vs. the Palestinian backlash to being stymied internationally vs. the Arab backlash to Obama siding with Israel vs. the international backlash to congressional opposition to the UN? Unlikely.
But, exactly because the specific issue is under most people’s radar, that 26 percent number is a huge problem for anti-Israel partisans. Palestinian statehood sounds kind of anodyne on its face, and you’d expect most undecideds to break in favor. But the percent of likely voters who agreed with the resolution is functionally indistinguishable from the percent of people who’ll say yes to anything they’ve never heard of. As soon as you get into the range of people who in some sense thought about the specifics of the question–which is to say, who activated whatever heuristics they use for evaluating Israeli/Arab issues in general–you encounter hard opposition to the anti-Israel position.
Americans believe in the importance of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and they distrust Palestinian attempts to undermine Israel’s diplomatic and military security. American politicians respond to that belief and that distrust. No amount of feverish conspiracy ranting about the Israel lobby is going to change that basic dynamic.
