From: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: american opinion
Date: 29 Dec 92 17:28:41 EST
Reply-To: "wayne mcguire" <wayne.mcguire@channel1.com>
Distribution: talk
Organization: Channel 1 Communications

To: Harry Mamaysky

 HM> OK. If you claim that there is anti-Semitism in this
 HM> country, then yes I would agree with you. However, this
 HM> purported wide spread disil- lusionment with Israel of which
 HM> you speak I have not seen. Can you present any proof
 HM> whatsoever for your claims - studies, surveys, opinion
 HM> polls? I have certainly not seen any.

Harry,

Yes, there is a good deal of anti-Semitism in the U.S. and around
the world, some of it dangerous, and all of it needing to be
carefully monitored and countered, but I an NOT saying that
anti-Semitism is the basis of the increasing disillusionment in
the Western democratic world with Israel. On the contrary. The
disillusionment is based on honest and vigorous disagreements
with specific Israeli policies and specific tactics of the
Israeli lobby. Americans have every right and obligation to
express these disagreements as part of our democratic culture.

One example: although you have not yet responded to the point, I
think it is outrageous that Israelis are receiving nearly $1000
per citizen per annum in U.S. aid while other nations in greater
need are receiving mere pennies. This is a state of affairs which
can only cause bad feeling and resentment towards Israel, and I
am surprised that Israeli supporters are not more sensitive to
the problem. In the long run all those billions in American aid
will not be worth it if the final effect is permanently to
alienate Americans from Israel. Does Israel really want to
continue promoting the image of itself as the world's supreme
schnorrer state? My words may seem harsh, but this is nothing
less than the truth, and it is a truth which is doing Israel
great harm.

As to specific polls to support my assertion that there has been
significant slippage during the last decade or two in American
support of and respect for Israel, I will produce a few in the
next few days. These polls have been so prominently discussed in
the major national media, repeatedly, that I never bothered to
document them. I thought they were part of the stock of general
world knowledge of anyone who pays attention to public affairs.
Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and other general and
reputable news outlets have discussed these polls on numerous
occasions.

One poll I did document, because the results were so striking:

     Poll Results Hushed. The Washington Report on Middle East
     Affairs, September 1990, p. 48.

     A survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
     B'rith for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was
     immediately suppressed after results showed that only 28
     percent of college-educated Americans favored Israel and 48
     percent were "more sympathetic" to Palestinians than Israeli
     causes.  Some 36 percent agreed with Shamir's policies,
     while 44 percent held "an unfavorable opinion" of the prime
     minister, the Indiana Jewish Post and Observer reported in
     July.

Take a good look a those numbers, Harry. And note carefully the
process of reality denial going on in the Jewish community. The
results of the poll were suppressed.

The strong plurality of college-educated Americans who disagree
with Likud's policies is not anti-Semitic. They have honest
disagreements with Likud's policies. You'd have to be blind not
to realize that Israel and the Israeli lobby are increasingly
moving out of the orbit of mainstream American opinion. The
current mess with the deportations underlines the trend.

Wayne
---
  OLX 3.01 31-2557  File under most strategic new anomalous patterns.
--
Channel 1 (R)   Cambridge, MA

Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast