March 18, 2013

(JTA) — A new poll shows that most Americans support Israel, but do not want the U.S. to take the lead in an Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Fifty-five percent of Americans, according to the ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday, sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinian Authority. Nine percent sympathize more with the P.A., 14 percent sympathize with neither side and 18 percent had no opinion on the question.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents, though, said the U.S. should leave peace talks to the Israelis and Palestinians, while 26 percent said the U.S. should lead the negotiations.

The 69 percent figure is 15 percentage points higher than when the poll last asked about the U.S. role in peace talks 11 years ago, during the second intifada.

Even numbers of Americans, according to the poll, believe the U.S. puts too much or too little pressure on Israel. The poll also showed that 34 percent of Americans think the U.S. puts too little pressure on the P.A., while eight percent said the U.S. pressures the P.A. too much.

More than seven in 10 Republicans support Israel over the P.A., while that number drops to 49 percent among Democrats. Only 11 percent of Democrats and 4 percent of Republicans sympathize more with the P.A. than with Israel.

Conducted by Langer Associates, the poll sampled 1,001 respondents and had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

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