Hamas Or Bust?

This has been discussed by other blogs such as Soccer Dad and JoshuaPundit, but I wanted to add my two cents--especially since I've seen Ha'aretz's faulty poll still being quoted.

Back in March, Gideon Lichfield--Jerusalem correspondent of The Economist--wrote in his blog Fugitive Peace about the Haaretz poll that found that 64% of Israelis favor talks with Hamas. He also wrote about the Tami Steinmetz Centre poll that found that only 17%of Jewish Israelis (25% total Israelis) favor those talks with Hamas.

That's odd.

So I called Ephraim Yaar of the Steinmetz Centre for an explanation, and it turns out to be simple. The Ha’aretz poll asked people if they supported talks with Hamas: yes or no. The Steinmetz poll asked them the best way for Israel to deal with the Qassam rockets from Gaza...

Here are the 2 polls side by side the way Lichfield has them:

Question 1: Should Israel conduct talks with Hamas towards a ceasefire and the release of Gilad Shalit?

Yes	64
No	28
Don’t know	8

Source: Ha’aretz/Dialog

Question 2: What is the best way for Israel to prevent rocket fire on the south?

Option	Israeli Jews	Israelis in general
Talk to Hamas	17.1	25.1
Relative restraint	5.6	6.6
Limited ground ops	32.7	28
Reoccupy Gaza	25.9	21.9
Other	10.8	9.5
Don’t know	7.8	9.0

Source: Tami Steinmetz Centre

Lichfield asked Ha'aretz pollster Camil Fuchs about the logic of the way he did his poll:

I asked Fuchs. “When you include other options, you’re cognitively giving legitimacy to them,” he says. “What you’re doing is hinting to the person that there are other people who prefer these options.” When there’s only one option on the table, on the other hand, you’re asking them to choose between doing that and doing nothing.

As if "Hamas or bust" were the only 2 options. Actually, given a choice between negotiating with Hamas and doing nothing while terrorist attacks continue against Sderot--you'd think more than just 64% would be in favor of negotiations. Gee, do you think Fuchs always includes only yes/no questions with no options?

This kind of dishonesty reminds me of the Winograd report--which despite its condemnation of the mistakes made by Olmert in the war with Hizbollah--did not recommend calling for Olmert's resignation. And why not? According to Winograd Committee member Prof. Yechezkel Dror:

“The peace process, if successful, will save so many lives that it should be given great weight,” Dror said. “It is not right to only look at one aspect.”

Unless of course it is more convenient to look at only one aspect--like talking to Hamas.

Considering the limitations made in their poll, one might think Ha'aretz came on a little strong when reporting on the results with the headline:

Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. [emphasis added]

Lichfield puts the results of the 2 polls together and concludes:

In short, what the two polls taken together say is that if the people could run the government, and had a range of options for dealing with Gaza, more of them would go with a military option. However, if the government says it’s going to talk to Hamas, 64% of the public would support it (though Fuchs thinks the number now would be a little lower than three weeks ago).

Is it any wonder that there is such a concerted effort out there to ignore the other options?

As Noah Pollak notes in discussing the new liberal version of AIPAC, J Street:

It seems to me that the J Streeters are never going to be able to escape the fact that, sitting in Washington, they are advocating policies for Israel that are overwhelmingly unpopular among Israelis — and attempting to brand this paternalism as “pro-Israel.”

Technorati Tag: Israel.