The boldface, over-sized headlines claim
25% of US Jews believe
Israel is an apartheid state
The above headline is from World Israel News @ https://tinyurl.com/c7a2cp84, but it is replicated, in the same or similar words, on multiple web sites.
HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS POLL?
Does anyone know
✡ How the questions were phrased?
✡ How were the questions asked?
✡ Who asked the questions?
✡ Where were the questions asked?
✡ Were political affiliations questioned?
✡ Were the respondents’ religious affiliations questioned?
✡ Who were the pollsters and what were THEIR politics?
✡ Have the respondents ever BEEN to Israel?
Does your wife know you still are cheating on her?
Not alone Israel education needed, but can it be trusted?
Mitchell Bard, writing for Jewish News Service (JNS) on 22 JUL 21, agrees this polls should be taken lightly.
"They only seem reasonable if the respondents were drawn from Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and IfNotNow. Such suspicions are supported by the fact the pollster has worked for J Street, which has published similarly dubious poll results." (https://tinyurl.com/ck2jakwc)
In an article headlined: Analysis: Jews gaslighting Jews – poll on US Jews’ attitudes towards Israel (https://tinyurl.com/4r4nrjhw), Dr. Alex Joffe, BESA Center (https://besacenter.org/) writes that A recent poll purports to capture the attitudes of American Jews regarding Israel and politics, but a closer look shows it was presented with a clear narrative arc designed to manipulate the respondents. The article cites specifics that actually answer some of the questions posed above.
This scrivener once was obliged to do “Man in the Street” interviews.
I determined what to ask, and I determined who to ask. Finally, I was the person asking the question so I could, via voice inflection and facial expression, give the respondent a clue to the response I wanted.
Naturally I never would try to influence a response. Naturally.
Call me skeptical
Unless I know ALL the answers to the eight questions above, AND until I see/hear the questions, my faith in a questionnaire (poll) is limited, sometimes severely limited.
I’ve “been there and done that.”
When I first read the 25% of US Jews believe Israel is an apartheid state I used a search engine — actually two: Google and Dogpile, the librarian’s choice — to try to find the complete questionnaire.
I failed to find it.
Indeed, I failed to find answers to ANY of the eight questions posed above.
I recently came back to Israel from the U.S.
In the U.S., where I lived the previous 42 years, I mostly resided in Florida and Virginia. (Before making aliyah in 1975, I lived and worked in more than 20 U.S. states.)
While I do know some JINOs who would claim that Israel is an apartheid state. I also know that none — zero percent — had ANY first hand experience in Israel.
The Jews I know mostly are at least “somewhat” observant and none — zero percent — agree with the poll.
That is not to claim all consider Israel to be a modern Gan Eden; all are realists.
Stay home, stay ignorant
I recall news stories about anti-Israel JINOs and friends who hung out at airports , particularly JFK in New York, to discourage Jewish youth from going on Birthright trips to Israel.
Admittedly, the Birthright trips — my daughter went on one — are designed to favorably impress young people with an “Israel experience.”
Despite that, Birthright cannot, and does not, hide Israel’s deficiencies.
Apartheid, however, is not one of those deficiencies.
Is there racism in Israel?
Yes.
Mostly Euro-Jews looking down on everyone different from them.
(Who rejected the Ethiopian Jews? Euro-Jews. Who accepted Ethiopian Jews? Sefardim and Mizrachim. On the other hand, who wanted to send illegal immigrants from Sudan back to Sudan? The poor Sefardim and Mizrachim of south Tel Aviv, where the illegals encamped. Who rose to the Sundanese defense? The Euro-Jews who live far from crime-ridden south Tel Aviv.)
Some of my best friends are observant Ashkenazim.
Admittedly, some predominately Muslim neighborhoods get less government services than nearby predominately Jewish neighborhoods, but that partially is do to politics — when a neighborhood gives most of its support to political parties that would destroy the state, it is, IMO, “reasonable” that the state would place a lower priority on those neighborhoods.
Scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours. Fact of life.
At the same time, Muslims are integrating into all segments of Israeli society.
“Muslims” is the operative word since Druze, who do not consider themselves Muslims, and other “non-Muslim” Arabs have been found in all segments of Israel society since the country’s founding.
If anything, Birthright is a minor counter to the anti-Israel, anti-Semitism plaguing too many universities in the U.S. and, reportedly, elsewhere.
Before you believe
Before believing ANY poll, consider the eight questions asked near the beginning of this rant.
Unless you have all the answers, the poll results are almost useless to anyone except the person or organization sponsoring the poll and the people responsible for both the questions, how they are presented, and to whom they are presented.
