A new U.S. poll of 800 likely U.S. voters has shown that nearly two-thirds of Americans – 63% – believe that Jerusalem should remain under undivided Israeli control. Only 20% of those polled believed that Jerusalem should be divided. The poll was carried out by the Israel Project on March 18-20 2008 and among its other findings were these:

• 77% of Americans believe that Israeli checkpoints in Judea and Samaria are justified for the protection of the lives of Israeli civilians, as against 15% who did not think so.
  
• 60% of Americans believe that, in the event of Palestinian missile attacks continuing without other remedy, Israel should militarily reoccupy Gaza, as against 32% who believe it should not (Israel Project National Survey, March 18-20, 2008).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This poll shows that the American public has a far more realistic view of the Arab-Israeli conflict than governments around the world, including the Bush Administration, which has only recently pressured Israel to lift roadblocks despite the complete absence of fulfillment by the Palestinian Authority (PA) of its obligations under the Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap to dismantle the apparatus of terror and end incitement to hatred and murder in the Palestinian public square that feeds it. The PA has not disarmed and jailed terrorists, nor has it confiscated their weapons and closed the bomb factories. It has not put an end to PA media, mosques, schools and youth movements glorifying suicide bombing and ‘martyrdom’ by murdering Israeli civilians. It has not put Israel on its maps or renamed streets, schools and sports teams named after terrorists.

“This poll also reflects the results of earlier polls, like the March 2007 ZOA-sponsored poll conducted by the nationally respected pollsters, McLaughlin and Associates, which showed that non-Jewish Americans, by a margin of 5 to 1, oppose Israeli land concessions to the Palestinian Arabs; and by 2 to 1, believe that a Palestinian state will be a terrorist state, not a peaceful democracy. These polls and others clearly show that Americans do understand that the Palestinians have not taken the minimum steps required to make peace and that peace prospects are consequently next to non-existent.

“It is for these reasons that ZOA has argued in the past, as it does now, for a freeze on funding to the PA and severing ties with it until these vital steps are taken. Such a policy would be understood by the American public, involve no domestic political fallout and would be the correct response to the situation. Only such pressure has a chance of producing the desired changes in Palestinian society and thus the possibility of peace with Israel.”