A majority of rank-and-file Democrats support neutrality - not alignment

[Douglas Carpenter]

with Israel.

LA Times Poll:

"Overall, 50% of the survey's respondents said the United States should continue to align with Israel, compared with 44% who backed a more neutral posture. But the partisan gap was clear: Democrats supported neutrality over alignment, 54% to 39%, while Republicans supported alignment with the Jewish state 64% to 29%." LA Times poll - link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-poll3aug03,0,5268515.story?coll=la-home-headlines

from Alternet - LA Times Misleading Poll - link: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/40171 /

According to the LA Times, "Most Americans consider Israel's bombing campaign in Lebanon justified, but they are divided about what role the United States should play in the crisis and how closely the nation should align itself with the Jewish state, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found."

"But the data reveals that there's more than a little bit of spin there. 43 percent said that Israel's actions were "justified, not excessively harsh," 16 percent said they were "justified, but excessively harsh" and 28 percent said the were "unjustified."

It would be far more accurate to say that Americans are split down the middle, with slightly more respondents condemning Israel's campaign. That's because, while there is some debate about whether Israel's response is justified in general, that is not the principle issue that divides America and Israel from the rest of the world.

The primary issue being debated in the world's capitals is whether the response was proportional, which makes the answer "Justified, but excessively harsh" essentially contradictory."

"snip:"So, because the poll was about Israel's actions, and not the general principle of retaliation, it's far more accurate to put the 16 percent who said that the Israeli response is "excessively harsh" with those who believe it is unjustified. That makes it a 43/44 split in terms of supporting the Israeli campaign."

link:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/40171 /

[orpupilofnature57]

1. And thats why it Neutralizes, everything they say!!!

[msmcghee]

2. Can you possibly twist the meaning any more . .

. . to show what you want it to show?

Justified means . . well, justified. 59% of Americans believed "Israel's actions" were justified . . period. 28% thought they weren't justified. That's more than a 2:1 preference for "justified".

Of the 59% majority who thought Israel's actions were justified - some thought they were excessive (16%) and some thought they were not (43%). That's almost a 3:1 ratio for "not excessive".

Whatever Alternet thinks is "The primary issue being debated in the world's capitals" . . has nothing to do with the answers of Americans in this poll.

[Tom Joad]

4. Course, many people thought the Iraq war was justified too.

People can be fooled, aint no doubt about that.

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. 54% of Democrats/44% of Americans support neutrality not alignment

That's the LA Times own words.

44% of Americans according to this poll thought that the actions were either excessive or unjustified -- that is the point Alternet was making--only 43% thought the actions were justified and not excessive.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. THESE FIGURES ARE ABSOLUTELY 100% CORRECT!!!

54% of Democrats support neutrality not alignment with Israel, period.

44% of Americans support neutrality not alignment with Israel, period.

44% of Americans believe that the Israeli attack on Lebanon was either excessive or completely unjustified, period.

43% of Americans believe that the Israeli attacks were justified and not excessive, period.

link:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-poll3aug03,0,5268515.story?coll=la-home-headlines

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/40171

[FlavaKreemSnak]

3. Maybe they are in favor of more neutral unconditional support for Israel

I think a lot of them think that because we give Israel so much money and weapons that it should not be American troops that help them with the occupation and that other countries should do more.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. the choice in the poll was alignment or neutrality -- pretty clear

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. .

[The Magistrate]

9. The Simple Word 'Neutrality', Mr. Carpenter

Does not convey much useful meaning in this context, nor can it be taken as providing much hope for those urging a political line of flat opposition to Israel.

By the standards employed by the latter group, most expressions of neutrality that might commonly be encountered are interchangeable with simple support for Israel. Neutrality, after all, does not embrace one-sided cries of war-crimes, the farcical exaggerations that underly cries of genocide, or the view that Israel is, at bottom, the gravest crime of the last half of the last century, nor does it reach to the view that support for Israel is contrary to the interests of the United States, or that such support is the product of various nefarious machinations of our political life, or base urges among those who support it. A person with a neutral view will reject all these assertions, even recoil in some distaste from their expression.

A person with a neutral view of the matter will simply acknowledge what is undeniably true of the situation, namely that both sides contribute to the impasse, that both sides behave poorly on occassion, and that any peace is bound to contain elements that are not wholly satisfactory to either side of it. A view like this is not some sort of "halfway house" inhabited on the way while moving from support for Israel to opposition to it. Nor are people who hold it adverse to the sort of expressions of support for Israel engaged in routinely by Democratic Party political figures.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I would not dispute that your description of neutrality is what 54% of

Democrats/44% of Americans more or less have in mind.

On another survey I came across (Pew) 43% of American primarily sympathize with Israel while only 14% primarily sympathize with Palestinians. link: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2002_June_1/ai_88679080

This hardly proves that their is groundswell of public support for the cause of Palestine. But it does cast doubt on the notion that "All Americans" are completely pro-Israel.

The majority of Americans simply don't think about it very much. And very few Americans have heard the Palestinian side of the story.

If this was my litmus test issue for voting, I would have to move to Dearborn, Michigan. John Dingel by the way has the most Pro-Palestinian voting record of any member of Congress. I suspect his district is conducive to that.

[The Magistrate]

11. You May Forgive Me, Sir, For Pressing The Point Above A Little Further

And pointing out again that this neutral view is far from incompatible with support for Israel, as it is generally expressed, yet is very far from opposition to Israel, as it is generally expressed, and certainly as it is frequently expressed here. My own view of the matter strikes me as pretty neutral, with only the underlying grain to it of having a preference, if the thing is actually going to be fought out to a final conclusion wrought by force among the contenders, that it be the enemies of Israel who are defeated, as these include in their number substantial elements that strike me as exceptionally pernicious in their views and intentions, and that the world, including the Moslem world, would derive great benefit by their discrediting and quashing.

In political life, where the people willing to express a strong preference in a matter break three to one to one soide of the question, that is about as overwhelming as support gets. There is no reason whatever to suppose those who do not express a strong preference will, if pushed to the point of having to declare for one side or another, break in any signifigantly different proportion. The recognition that opposition to Israel is a political loser in the United States is based on this understanding, not on belief that "all Americans support Israel". It is enough that the proportion who do is overwhelming to root it firmly in the political culture of a democratic polity.

It is a common enough belief among people who hold a view, particularly a minoroty view, that a great many more people would hold it if they "had all the facts", and thus it is natural enough to imagine that if more people had "heard the Palestinian side of the story" then the proprtion of views on the matter would change. But the fact is that people are not ignorant about the distress of Arab Palestinians. They tend to view it, however, not in isolation but as part of a situation that the actions of many Arab Palestinians contributes mightily to, and so are inclined to dismiss it as a leading object of sympathy in the way they dismiss the distress of persons in their own lives who engage in self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors. Their model in this regard will be relations with a family member or friend who has some addiction problem, or has joined a cult, or engages routinely in criminal behavior: such people bring their sufferings on themselves, in the eyes of most people, and are in a different class from people who have lost homes in a storm, or been maimed by a drunk driver, or afflicted with some devesating illness, or worked twenty years in the plant that closed down and now cannot even find a fast-food job.

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. has the Palestine national movement been any more violent, practiced

anymore "terrorism", used anymore inflammatory rhetoric or been any more "unreasonable" than other national movements; for example South Africa, Kosovo or Iraqi Kurdistan?

I cannot say that I have done an exhaustive comparison. But I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure that in Europe or even Canada where the discussion of the Palestinian issue is more open and from my point of view at least somewhat more balanced, a higher percentage of the population are probably more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Most Americans who have heard a narrative on this whole issue have heard a narrative somewhere between Leon Uris and Benny Morris; hardly neutral--much less sympathetic. I will grant this is probably partly the fault of the Palestinian national movement who until the last decade or so never understood the importance of presenting their case in the court of world opinion. While even the early Zionist movement and later the state of Israel understood that very well and worked diligently at presenting their case, winning friends and influencing people. Furthermore the Palestinians' political opponent happens to be a people whose own history justifiably inspires a great deal of rational sympathy. The late Edward W. Said spoke of how that their struggle is clouded by the reality that the Palestinians' persecutor and oppressor are themselves histories' most persecuted and oppressed. This is all true. But it does not change the merit of the Palestinian cause.

[breakaleg]

12. Neutrality from the strongest nation in the world is a cop-out.

Neutrality = turning a blind eye. I think the US, who supports Israel financially and militarily and is responsible for giving Israel the military capability it has, has a little more responsibility in their state of affairs than that.

[Name removed]

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[Douglas Carpenter]

15. there was no Hezbollah until Israel invaded and occupied

and massacred over 17,000 Lebanese civilians. This invasion started in 1982 even though there had been no violent incursions across their border for eleven months. As the famous Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery puts it, "the South of Lebanese Shiites were as docile as a doormat".

The Lebanese people -including the Shiites have no quarrel with the American people except for the reality that it is American bombs and weapons that bomb their people, destroy their infrastructure and wreck their country.

I certainly have not sympathy for groups like Hezbollah. But it is also a reality that violence begets violence which begets violence which begets violence which begets violence.....

I wonder what sort of group the latest carnage create.

But don't worry the Democratic Party leadership will continue to back your point of view.