Can the Israeli Public Like Obama More than Bibi and Back Settlement-Building?

One of the three polls of Israeli public opinion released today suggest that Israelis are overall favorable towards U.S. President Barack Obama, despite the apparent tensions between the U.S. government and Israel over the issue of settlement construction in east Jerusalem.

The three polls released Friday suggest that Israelis have mixed feelings towards their leader, while they tend to support settlement construction.

According to ABC News:

Thirty-six percent of those questioned for one poll thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was best suited to lead Israel, versus 26 percent for his closest challenger, opposition leader Tzipi Livni. But another poll showed Livni's Kadima Party would overtake Netanyahu's Likud by a wider margin if elections were held today.

Despite the apparent edge President Obama seems to have in the polls, they also found that a majority of Israelis supported continued construction in Jerusalem, the issue at the heart of the U.S.-Israeli disagreement. Support ranged from 48 percent in one poll to 70 percent in another.

If this is in fact true, one explanation is that Israelis who support settlement-building do not care so strongly that they evaluate leaders based solely on their positions towards it. Another explanation could be that they simply do not think President Obama is really so opposed to settlement construction; perhaps they just rationalize it as him giving a nod to the Palestinians and do not think he will actually do much to stop them.

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