This is a Dem Pollster, John. Read the numbers, and get over your naivety.
THE POLLSTERS
Mark Mellman - "The Hill"
Fear and loathing in Israel
I ate dinner in a restaurant tonight — hardly remarkable for a consultant who spends too much time on the road. The food was excellent, but had she known I was there, my mother would have been hysterical. A friend refused to join me.
It was not a bar, but there was a bouncer armed with a pistol. There was no red-velvet rope, but there was a heavy chain across the entryway. The small group of diners, myself included, kept glancing nervously at everyone who walked by.
The restaurant was not in Las Vegas or Los Angeles. It was in Jerusalem, where there is no such thing as a safe neighborhood.
I am here to help a coalition committed to human rights for all, even in these trying times. But I know my purpose would not protect me.
A couple days before I arrived, and a couple of blocks from where I ate, 15 people sipping coffee were blown to bits by a suicide bomber (“soldier” in Dean-speak). In a hotel lobby yesterday, I saw members of a family who had come for a wedding and instead buried the bride and her father. They were among those at the café.
As I ate dinner, my eyes fixed on a picture of Yasir Arafat in the newspaper. He was surrounded by Israeli parliamentarians who had come to act as “human shields” should the Israeli military strike. I couldn’t help but wonder why no Palestinian leaders were sitting in restaurants shielding Israelis from suicide bombers.
Israelis are nervous. My friend’s edginess is understandable. Not long ago, he was driving to work when a man jumped onto the road in front of him and emptied a Kalashnikov into his car. The friend only lived to tell the tale because his assailant never picked up the gun to aim, shooting from the hip instead.
A man sitting next to me in a suburban Jerusalem synagogue explained why he was nervous. The synagogue caretaker, he said, had been killed by terrorists. The daughter of a man to our left — blown up on a bus. The father of a man behind us — killed at a bus stop on his way to do volunteer work with disabled children. Doctors had saved the baby of a woman who lived a block away, but the mother died from the nails that were packed with the bomb.
Israelis still long for peace. Some work for it every day, but many are losing hope.
They read the future in bloodstained sidewalks.
More prosaically, I see it in polls.
Palestinian pollsters have found that 60 percent of their people support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Only 30 percent oppose them. Seventy-five percent support a violent “intifada,” and 47 percent believe that it should end in the elimination of Israel. A nearly equal number (46 percent) would settle for the establishment of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza.
What do Israelis have to look forward to with the establishment of a Palestinian state?
Even if a Palestinian state were established, 59 percent would oppose legal action against those who incite violence. Sixty-one percent of Palestinians oppose changing the hate-filled educational system to teach tolerance. Only 42 percent would favor efforts to stop terrorism even if Israel agreed to a Palestinian state, evacuated most of the settlements and withdrew its military.
No set of leaders convening around tables of any shape can hope to bring peace merely by finding a roadmap. Changing Palestinian public opinion must be a central component of any successful peace process. But with two-thirds of Palestinians believing terror attacks help their negotiating position, restaurant diners will likely continue to glance nervously at passersby.
Mark S. Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982.
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