The Associated Press covered a poll of incredible significance affecting Israeli-Palestinian peace. In it, we discover that Israelis are deeply divided about a law that allows West Bank Israelis to sue other Israelis who organize boycotts against them and hurt their livelihood. In fact, the AP has had story after story about the boycott bill, and is flooding the zone with news about how undemocratic not allowing people to boycott whomever they want, without penalties, can be.
It’s a very important poll, you see. Of course the AP should cover it. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
But there’s another very important poll that no new organization outside of Israel is covering. It’s the one that says 6 out of every 10 Palestinians reject the two-state solution, sharing Jerusalem, or indeed, the existence of a Jewish state. Note the wording that was rejected: It could not be any clearer.
Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”
Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.
What about the idea of phased destruction that Yasser Arafat said all along was the goal of the Palestinian Authority? Well, the Palestinians are still on board with that.
Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.
It isn’t Israeli hearts and minds that need changing. It is the Palestinians. And settlements don’t seem to be the real obstacle to peace. Look at these findings:
Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.
Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.
These findings were utterly ignored by the mainstream media. Time Magazine’s Karl Vick, who authors most of their anti-Israel fare, could find only good things to say about the poll, with a few exceptions:
Palestinians are trudging down the same long road as Israelis. Yes, they want peace. No, they don’t think the other side will play ball. So for now their priority is private life: Getting food on the table and keeping the kids safe. That, at least, is the picture painted by a new survey of 1,010 Palestinians interviewed face to face in both the West Bank and Gaza over the last two weeks. It was conducted by a Palestinian firm working for Stan Greenberg, famed as Bill Clinton’s pollster but who did this work for The Israel Project, a well-funded private U.S. group that promotes the positions of Israel’s government.
Note how he dismisses the pollster’s work because of the group that hired him to do it. Note also that he utterly dismisses the work of The Israel Project by claiming it is a shill for the Israeli government. I’m going to guess he never describes a single pro-Palestinian group as one that “promotes the positions of the Palestinian Authority.”
No wonder his blog is called “Global Spin”. Witness:
But by the same 2 to 1 margin they also oppose the two-state solution that’s been the stated goal of negotiations. Most prefer ending up with a single state, in which Palestinians presumably would outnumber Jewish Israelis. The poll numbers shift some (to 44 percent positive) when the question becomes whether they “will accept a two-state solution.” Greenberg says the difference is simply a matter of asking what people want versus what they can live with. “I polled in Great Britain a lot during the negotiations on Northern Ireland,” he says. “What people say they want and what people will ultimately agree to are two different things.”
Yes, it’s “presumable” that a single-state solution would make Jews the minority in their own homeland. The question of how they become a minority is not raised. Violence? Pshaw. All they really want is to make money. Funny how that’s now a desirable goal. This, remember, is the same Karl Vick that wrote about how Israelis aren’t interested in peace, only in making money. It’s amazing how he can spin the data and discredit the pollster, who is used frequently by Democratic organizations (and who is praised to the hilt when not working for The Israel Project).
Reuters and the AP didn’t bother writing up the results of this poll. The AFP whitewashed it, completely ignoring the information above. It would change the current media narrative that it is Israel obstructing the peace process. Publishing news about this poll would force the mainstream media to acknowledge that after 63 years, the Palestinian Arabs still want the end of the Jewish state. They still deny that Jews have a 3,000-year history in Israel. And they believe that Jerusalem must not be shared.
If it were Israelis polled who said that they wanted a Greater Israel from the river to the sea, no Palestinian state, and no peace with the Palestinians, this poll would be approaching 5,000 news items on Google News. I could find only three more: Vick’s drek, a Turkish news source, and a New York Post blog item.
Once again, we see the very active anti-Israel media bias in action. The media never defy the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of The Palestinians.” Note the whitewash and spin in the quotes above. This is why Israel’s reputation in the world is so awful.
This is why I write my blog, and why I’m coming off my retro-blogging hiatus for this one post. This is the news that the anti-Israel media does not want you to know.
Spread the word.
