Israel Matzav

Poll: Only one third of Americans approve of Obama's handling of Israel

A newly-released Quinnipiac poll shows that only one third of Americans approve of how President Obama is handling Israel and the 'Palestinians.' Two thirds of Jews disapprove (Hat Tip: Lenny B).

A Quinnipiac University survey released Thursday morning indicates that 35 percent of the public gives the president a thumbs up on how he's dealing with the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, with 44 percent saying they disapprove, and just over one in five unsure.

This stands in contrast with how Americans feel about Obama's overall handling of foreign policy, with 48 percent approving and 42 percent saying they disapprove.

According to the poll, two-thirds of Jewish voters disapprove of how the president's handling Israeli-Palestinian relations, with 28 percent saying they approve. Jewish voters were big backers of Obama in the 2008 presidential election, with exit polls indicating that nearly eight of ten backed the Democratic candidate.

Two-thirds of people questioned in the survey say that the president should be a strong supporter of Israel but, by a 42 percent to 34 percent margin, voters say Obama's not a strong supporter of Israel.

...

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted April 14-19, with 1,930 registered voters questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.

J Street could not be reached for comment. J Street keeps producing polls that show how popular Obama is in the Jewish community using their in-house pollster. Quinnipiac has no such biases.

Hmmm.

UPDATE FRIDAY 1:10 AM

J Street reacted with a tweet that pointed to this article from last December by Eric Fingerhut that said the sample size of Jews in a previous Quinnipiac poll was too small (Hat Tip: Republican Jewish Coalition via Twitter). But who knows whether that's true this time?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:31 PM