May 10, 2002	atimes.com

Front Public backing for US pressure on Sharon By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - A hefty majority of the United States public disagrees with Congressional and administration support for the current Israeli government in its conflict with the Palestinians, a major new survey revealed on Wednesday. Rather, voters want a much more even-handed US approach. Political and foreign-policy analysts said that the results of the poll, carried out by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), showed that President George W Bush could receive strong public backing for exerting more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, something that he has been reluctant to do. "The big message coming out of this poll is that the president has considerable running room to pursue a tougher line with Sharon," said Jerome Segal, a leading expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Only 17 percent of the 802 citizens surveyed in the poll agreed with Israel's contention - endorsed almost unanimously by both houses of the US Congress last week - that the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be seen as part of the US war on terrorism. Two-thirds said that they wanted the United States to avoid taking sides between the parties. Two-thirds also said that they favored a process whereby the United Nations Security Council would impose a territorial settlement of the conflict. Almost 80 percent said that Washington should participate in a peacekeeping operation to enforce a settlement between the sides. The poll also showed strong support for the Bush administration's recent moves to rein in Sharon and press for an international conference to help resolve the conflict. By a margin of 63-26 percent, with 11 percent undecided, respondents said that they approved of Bush's demand last month that Israel withdraw its troops from the Palestinian towns it recently took over, and a majority favored threatening to cut off military aid if the Israelis failed to withdraw. Sixty-two percent agreed with the proposition that Israel's intervention has "increased the likelihood of further suicide bombings against Israeli civilians". Four out of five respondents said that they approved of Secretary of State Colin Powell's meeting with Palestine Authority chief Yasser Arafat, while 82 percent said that they favored Powell's recent initiative to convene a major international conference with the European Union, Russia and the UN to deal with the conflict. In fact, said Segal, the poll results were "quite pro-Colin Powell". His efforts to pursue a more even-handed and multilateral approach to the conflict have been frustrated both by opposition from forces in Vice President Dick Cheney's office and at the Pentagon, which favor Sharon's Likud party, and in Congress among pro-Israeli forces and the Christian right. Last week, in what was seen as a reproach to Powell's peace-making efforts, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved sweeping resolutions in support of Israel's recent military operations on the West Bank and all but ruling out Arafat as a viable negotiating partner. As the authoritative "Congressional Quarterly" put it, "members of both parties competed to show their support for the Jewish state". Some recent polls have shown strong support for Israel in the current conflict. Two polls taken last month, for example, showed that 47-48 percent of respondents sided with Israel, compared with only 13-15 percent who identified more with the Palestinians. But these polls showed a very large percentage of people who were not committed one way or another, a finding that was borne out by the far more detailed PIPA survey, which asked respondents more than 50 questions, many with multiple options for answers. For example, asked which side they blamed for the failure to reach a peace settlement, 29 percent blamed the Palestinians more, 7 percent the Israelis, and 55 percent "both sides about equally". "What this poll makes clear is that recent actions by Congress are out of step with the American public and their views on the crisis in the Middle East," said Steven Kull, PIPA's director. Contrary to the thrust of the Congressional resolutions, "Americans clearly hold both sides equally responsible for the current situation and are willing to increase pressure on both sides to achieve a peace deal," he said. Seven in 10 respondents said that they were following the Middle East crisis either "very closely" or "fairly closely" - an unusually high percentage for a foreign conflict in which US troops are not directly engaged, according to I M Destler, a public-opinion specialist at the University of Maryland. "What has happened in the last few months is that a larger portion of the population are looking at this as a priority issue," said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast specialist at the Brookings Institution, a major think tank in Washington. According to both Telhami and Segal, the shift represents an important opportunity for Bush to take much bolder steps in dealing with the crisis. While three in four respondents agree that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more important for the US as a result of last September's terrorist attacks, the same percentage does not see the conflict as "part of the war on terrorism, like the US struggle with al-Qaeda". Almost half the respondents defined it instead as "a conflict of two national groups fighting over the same piece of land". "The public is not defining the problems of the region through the prism of terrorism," noted Shibley. Rather, rather they "see terrorism as an instrument" in a political struggle. At the same time, a strong majority said Palestinian attacks on civilians were unjustifiable. A striking 84 percent of respondents said that they would favor the US putting more pressure on Israel if Palestinians stopped terrorism and used non-violent forms of protest against occupation. "If I were in the [Palestinian leadership] and read this poll, I would conclude that what we need is a massive, non-violent demonstration," said Segal. Fifty-eight percent said that they believed that Washington was taking Israel's side and, despite Bush's claims to being an honest broker, only 22 percent said that he was doing so. The public also backs the use of sanctions against both the Palestine Authority and the Israeli government if they fail to heed US calls for a ceasefire and new negotiations. More than 60 percent would support withholding aid to whichever party failed to comply with US demands. In contrast to Congress, the poll showed strong disapproval of Israel's recent military offensive, with 63 percent backing Bush's call for an Israeli withdrawal and 55 percent seeing it as an effort "to punish the Palestinian population" rather than solely as an operation to root out terrorists. (Inter Press Service)

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