Charge: Poll Denying Majority Opposition to PA State is Flawed
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) Land of Israel activists charge that distorted poll data has misled the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (the OU) into underestimating the extent of Jewish opposition to a PA state.
The OU’s Nathan J. Diament wrote last week on the need for – and the opportunity to – unite much of American Jewry on a common stance regarding Israel and the peace process. In an op-ed piece for the June 5 issue of the Jewish Daily Forward, the OU’s director of public policy writes, “Many on the Jewish right… do not oppose – in principle – the creation of a Palestinian state in portions of Judea and Samaria.”
Asked straight out if they support or oppose a Palestinian state, 51% said they oppose.
However, the Cities of Israel grassroots movement states that this conclusion is likely based on an apparently flawed public survey – the results of which were blatantly different than another poll.
A Ynet story on a recent Rafi Smith Institute poll was headlined, “58% of the Jewish Public in Israel Supports 2-State Solution.” The story itself explained more precisely that 58% actually only “agreed that the principle of ‘two states for two peoples’ is the basis of any peace agreement with the Palestinians.”
Susie Dym, spokesperson for Cities of Israel, explains that the poll does not accurately reflect support or opposition for a Palestinian state: “Asking whether one agrees that this idea is the ‘basis for an agreement’ is asking only whether the respondent is aware that currently, the two-state idea is practically the only peace plan currently being entertained. It is not at all the same as asking whether one actually supports the ‘two-state’ notion.”
In fact, Dym states, a poll commissioned by her organization asked exactly that – and the results were quite different.
Just days before the recent national election, in which the Likud-led nationalist bloc won a significant victory, a Brain Base Institute telephone survey asked this question: “In light of the experience with Disengagement, the Second Lebanon War and the war against Hamas in Gaza, do you support or oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria?”
51% Oppose Palestinian State, 32% Support
Some 32% said they “greatly oppose,” and another 19% said they “oppose,” for a total of 51%. Only 12% said they “greatly support” such a state, and another 20% said they “support,” for a total of less than a third in favor of a Palestinian state.
It should be noted that the Smith poll showing 58% Jewish support for a PA state asked only some 500 people, while the latter poll surveyed nearly four times that many – 1,894 Israelis.
Dym found another fault with the Smith poll question as well: “It implicitly implied that a ‘peace agreement with the Palestinians’ is both desirable and feasible, thus possibly swaying the respondent’s response.”
Support for the two state solution among the Jewish Israeli public is largely theoretical. When you get down to the details, almost all Israeli Jews oppose a sovereign Palestinian state – one with its own army and that could make alliances with countries hostile to Israel. And since that is exactly what the Palestinians demand at a minimum, in practice the prospects of the TSS ever being realized are close to zero.
American Jews: going, going….
It’s not for nothing that 80% of American “Jews” voted for Obama.
It’s just one more nail in the coffin of the rapidly disappearing American conservative and reform “Jews”. These movements only came into existence because those Jews felt guilty about abandoning Judaism outright, so they made a new kind of Judaism that allowed their children to assimilate without anyone feeling guilt.
The idea that a lesbian “rabbi” strumming her guitar and singing L’kha Dodi with her new civil marriage partner on a Friday night represents a type of Judaism is pretty crazy. And of course, that service is on Friday night because no one would give up their Saturdays just to go to shul.
So these guys are now just “JINOs” (Jews In Name Only). American Jewish support for Israel has vanished along with American Jews. Conservative and reform “Jews” are about to assimilate and disappear. The ultra-orthodox stay out of goyish politics, and many of them are anti-Zionist besides.
That leaves “Modern Orthodox” and Lubavitch, but they number far less then 2 million. Whatever AIPAC was, it has now been castrated, and the ZOA is well meaning but insignificant.
So Israel is left more and more isolated. And worse yet, 40% of the Israeli “Jews” are only “Jewish” because they are trapped in Israel. They passionately hate Judaism and would outlaw it if they thought they could get away with it.
One last thing: how the hell do you do a “scientific representative survey” of American Jews? How do you find them to begin with? The Orthodox live in close knit communities, and the non-orthodox are scattered all over the place. Think about it. No survey can possibly be representatitve.
Fistel you are correct as far as you go but you forget the apikores, in the black suits and white sox, black sox and all of them in between. The “religious” Jew? I should say rather the Orthodox practitioner of Jewish ritual whose sojourn in an Exile two millennia old has corrupted and perverted the most basic of real Jewish values. Bearded and piously payotic; or cleanshaven and woolly skull capped, they join with all the others in the ecumenical worship of the Golden Calf of our times:
The Golden Exile!
“And they scorned the desirable land.” (Psalms 106)
And so they invent all kinds of rationales, all cloaked in a tallit that is all blue. “Israel is also Exile…” “This is not the beginning of the redemption, merely the footsteps of the Messiah…”
Do they understand what they speak? Can one look at a state that rises miraculously after two millennia and watch an ingathering of exiles from a hundred lands and not see in this the beginning of the great vision and redemption? Regardless of the sins and abominations in the land?
No, that which we do not wish to do, we do not. But first, we must stamp the swine with the halachic label of kosher…
How they hallow the profane! How they sanctify the desecration! How they magnify and exalt the Exile which – in its very being – represents the degradation and profaning of the Holy Name!
“And when they came into the nations, whither they came, they profaned My Holy Name, in that the nations said concerning them: These are the people of the L-rd and they are driven forth from the land! But I had pity for My Holy Name which the House of Israel profaned among the nations whither they came. Therefore say unto the House of Israel: Thus saith the L-rd, G-d: I do this not for your sake O House of Israel, but for My Holy Name… And I will sanctify My great Name which hath been profaned among the nations which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the L-rd, saith the L-rd, G-d, WHEN I SHALL BE SANCTIFIED THROUGH YOU BEFORE THEIR EYES. For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries and will bring you into your own land.” (Ezekiel 36)
“As I live, saith the L-rd, G-d, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, will I be king over you. And I will bring you out from the peoples… with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm and fury poured out.” (Ezekiel 20)
But nothing moves the “religious” either. They have been inordinately twisted and corrupted by twenty centuries of abnormality. The religion that was totally intertwined with land and earth and nation and power, becomes a pale, vapid set of rituals. When roots have lost their hold on the land, they slowly die of malnutrition. And so, they discover a new Zion and a New Jerusalem.
They become Americans or Englishmen or Frenchmen or Canadians of Mosaic piety, deeply pious piety. They stand firmly on the barricades to insure that their meat shall be more than merely kosher; that the gorgeous wig shall cover the rather plain woman as she wears her very expensive dress that overshadows her neighbor, but which properly covers the elbow as she installs her chandelier; that they shall live in the comfort of the swine and not have to risk the sufferings of the pure in Eretz Yisrael. What matter that the rabbis decree that “a man shall rather live in the Land of Israel in a city with a majority of heathens rather than in the Exile in a city with a majority of Jews.” What matter that the rabbis proclaim that “one who lives outside of Israel worships idols in purity…”? What matter that they intone that one who lives outside the land “is as one who has no G-d”? One knows how to explain away rabbinical injunctions when the spirit so desires…
The Land of Israel remains for them “exile”. And nothing touches their conscience. And there is no shame, no shame.
“You have shamed me, King of Khazars… For the Divine presence was prepared to descend upon the world as in the beginning, had all the Jews agreed to return to the Land with a willing heart. But only some returned and their leaders remained in Babylon desiring the Exile and their labor in order not to be separated from their homes and affairs.” (Yehuda Halevi, Sefer Hakuzari)
And so the Jew sits. Sits with all the others, the strangers, the foreigners, the gentiles, from whom he is bid to separate himself. He sits and sups and drinks and laughs and enjoys. And sees nothing.
“Ephraim, he mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is become a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not.” (Hosea 7)
The Jew waits. He waits to be a victim, twice over.
By Rabbi Meir Kahane
1982
Forty Years
Yamit82, Rabbi Kahane z’tl” would observe Israel was restored not because the Jews were worthy of it but because G-d wanted to sanctify His Name among the nations. The generation that entered the Land under Joshua sinned too but G-d exalted Himself over the Caananites. The Jews found it difficult to resist the lure of pagans who spoke Hebrew and with whom they shared a similar cultural milieu. The Hebrew Bible is replete with reference to ancient Caananite myths and the way the Jews fell for the Caananite gods.It is not for nothing Isaiah refers to Hebrew as “the language of Caanan.” No one would have said then that it was easy to be a Jew. Today the Caananites are gone but the ways of the world still tempts the Jew. Overcoming the Exile within the Jew is as great a struggle as overcoming the Exile in which the Jew remains.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Poll: Israelis say “no” to Obama 54%:33%
Poll: Israelis say “no” to Obama 54%:33%
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date 3 June 2009
Poll of representative sample of Israeli adults (including Israeli Arabs)
carried out by Geocartography Knowledge Group – Prof. Avi Degani – this
week for Israel Television Channel One’s Populitika program. results
broadcast on 2 June 2009.
Will the USA of President Obama support Israel during time of war, as it
did in the past?
Yes 53% Only declarations 25% No 10% No opinion 12%
Will the USA intervene militarily to Israel’s defense when the Iranian
nuclear threat to Israel will be tangible and close or Israel is actually
attacked?
Yes 55% Just talk 21% No 12% No opinion 12%
Should Israel say “no” now to the US of Obama and not make any concessions
to the Palestinians until conditions of peace and security (on the ground)
are
reached?
Yes 54% No 33% No opinion 13%.
In return for a peace agreement with the Palestinians that will be good for
Israel would you support transferring a large portion of the territories in
Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians?
No 50% Yes 43% No opinion 7%
Prof. Degani noted on the program that the reply to the last question
reflected a shift to the Right in Israeli public opinion as compared to the
past.