70% of Israelis don’t trust US on security, says poll
Asked whether they agreed with recent criticism of Kerry by top Israeli officials, 67% said yes and only 32% said no.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANUS Secretary of State John Kerry.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Seventy percent of Israeli Jews do not believe the US can be relied upon to maintain key Israeli interests and security requirements in the American- brokered agreement being drafted with the Palestinians, a Geocartography Institute poll taken this week found.When the pollsters asked respondents whether they trusted the US under President Barack Obama to maintain Israel’s interests in a deal, 23% said definitely no, 25% said no, 22% said not completely, 17% said yes, 8% said definitely yes and 5% had no opinion.Asked whether they agreed with recent criticism of US Secretary of State John Kerry by top Israeli officials, 67% said yes and only 32% said no.But among the respondents who answered affirmatively, 13% said Israeli officials should be careful not to criticize the US publicly.Sixty-seven percent said they agreed with the concerns about a potential boycott of Israel that Kerry raised. Only 17% said they were not concerned at all about such a boycott.Geocartography Institute director Avi Degani, who took the poll, said middle-class Israelis were most concerned about a boycott.The poll of 500 respondents representing a sample of the adult Jewish Israeli population has a 4.2% point margin of error.
