Poll: Americans Oppose U.S. Recognition of Israeli Annexation - 5/13/2020

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu campaigned promising to annex large swaths of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Annexation is included in the new unity agreement between the governing coalition—Likud and Blue and White—in the Israeli parliament. Netanyahu, battling serious corruption charges and due to hand over power to his unity government partner Benny Gantz in October of 2021, plans to bring up the initiative in parliament this summer. The Trump administration, which has tilted toward Israel in all major issues since taking office, has indicated it will support Israeli territorial designs.

Much of the rest of the world views Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian lands and imminent annexation plans as violations of United Nations resolutions and international law.

A plurality of Americans oppose any formal U.S. recognition. When asked, 37.3 percent responded that the U.S. should not recognize Israeli annexation, while 34.2 percent said that it should. Other responses were offered by the remaining 28.5 percent, with many responding they had insufficient information to state an opinion.

Israel and many nodes of its enormous U.S. lobby refer to imminent annexation with the same euphemism: “application of sovereignty.” However, even longtime operatives at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s think tank appear to believe that unilateral annexation may finally kill the American goose that has laid golden eggs for Israel since its founding. David Makovsky and Dennis Ross cautioned that “we think that all unilateral annexation is a mistake and hope the prime minister refrains from doing so.”

Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee, Saeb Erakat, urged world leaders to take concrete action against Israel. “What we’re telling them is that Netanyahu can survive statements of condemnation, but he needs to hear that there will be backlash and consequences as well.”

Additional poll question and editorial input provided by Janet McMahon and Jeffrey Blankfort.

Question: “Israel has said it will annex the West Bank, which has a population of 3 million Palestinians and 300,000 illegal Israeli settlers. Should the U.S. formally recognize this move?”

Developed by: IRmep
Survey fielded by: Google Surveys 5/10/2020-5/12/2020
Representative Sample size: 1,639
Google survey page (link)
Raw survey data from Google (Download)

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