Both Trump, Clinton good for Israel, local opinion poll shows

Of the Jewish respondents, 34% said that they think a Republican president would be better for Israel.

By MICHELLE MALKA GROSSMAN
US presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) and Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (photo credit: REUTERS)
US presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) and Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
(photo credit: REUTERS)
If Israelis could vote in the American elections, they would want either a President Hillary Clinton or a President Donald Trump, according to findings from the Israeli Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University’s monthly Peace Index poll, released on Sunday.
Of the Democratic Party candidates, 40.5 percent of survey respondents said they prefer Clinton “from Israel’s standpoint.” As for Bernie Sanders, 16.5% prefer him, while 10% say both candidates would be bad for Israel.
When asked if Trump is “friendly to Israel,” 61% of Jewish Israelis responded in the affirmative. To the same question, 44% of Arab Israelis responded “I don’t know.”
Of the Jewish respondents, 34% said that they think a Republican president would be better for Israel, while 28% said the same of a Democratic president. An opposite phenomenon was seen among Arab Israeli respondents when asked which party would be more pro-Israel.
Forty-seven percent said a Democratic president would be more pro-Israel, 30% said there would be no difference and 23% said that a Republican president would be more pro-Israel.
Regarding whether or not Jerusalem is already a divided city, 61% of Jewish Israelis said yes. Meanwhile, 47% of Arab Israelis answered the same. When the question was asked in 1999, only 44% of Jewish respondents said Jerusalem was divided.
The survey was conducted via telephone between February 28 and March 1, reaching 600 respondents, which the institute said constituted a representative sample of Israel’s adult population over the age of 18. There was a 4.1% margin of error.