Iran and Israel: How the People Really Feel

As part of another discussion, I ran across this poll about Israel. It was very enlightening to me, and I thought some here might appreciate taking a look.

Most Israelis could live with a nuclear Iran: poll. Pretty interesting. Seems the vast majority believe that even against a nuclearly armed Iran, their own nukes would be a deterrent to outright annihilation.

This was an interesting poll too, and as far as I can tell, the only one out there. It seems to have been thoughtfully administered, and the analysis is pretty in-depth.

I'm linking to a blog because the actual poll and analysis is a PDF that I can't figure out how to link to from here. Poll : Iranians Willing to Forego Nuclear Weapons in Return for Normalizing Relations

When you get there, click full report in the first paragraph.

Overall, I think both polls really demonstrate how people and the governments that represent them don't always see eye to eye. But most of us already know that all too well.

Let me know what you think!

Wow, Didnt think that most Israeli's thought like that.

Nice find. But it makes sense, even if Iran had nuclear weapons never mind nuke power they wouldnt use them on Israel or anyone due to the fact they would also be wiped out and the Middle East would be a glass carpark.

S&F

[edit on 10-7-2010 by Master Shen long]

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Linking my post also here where I posted this little tidbit

Iranian Public Opinion on Governance, Nuclear Weapons and Relations with the United States

Nuclear Weapons

Both the TFT and WPO polls show the vast majority of Iranians want their country to develop nuclear energy. TFT found that 89 percent of Iranians favor (including 78% who strongly favor) "the Iranian Government developing nuclear energy." [TFT, Q 12a] WPO found that 90 percent of Iranians believe it is important (including 81% very important) for Iran "to have a full fuel cycle nuclear program." [WPO, Q 28]

Both polls also show that the Iranian public's support for the development of nuclear weapons is considerably less than that for nuclear energy, but how much less depends considerably on how the question was posed. TFT asked about Iran's government developing nuclear weapons immediately after its question on nuclear energy and found a slim majority in favor (51% vs. 39% opposed). [TFT, Q 12b] WPO asked several questions about Iran foregoing nuclear weapons in the context of different international proposals that did not limit Iran's nuclear energy program. Each of these questions found a clear majority willing to accept the proposal. For example, 58 percent favor (vs. 26% oppose) the following offer:

"Suppose the U.N. Security Council were to say that it would accept Iran having a full fuel cycle nuclear program limited to the enrichment levels necessary for nuclear energy, if Iran agrees to allow the IAEA permanent and full access throughout Iran to ensure that its nuclear program is limited to energy production." [WPO, Q 34; also see QQ. 27 and 74]

TFT found large majorities of Iranians saying they would be willing to forego developing nuclear weapons in return for "trade and capital investment to create jobs" (70% support vs. 22% oppose) and "technological assistance for developing peaceful nuclear energy" (71% vs. 20%). [TFT, QQ 13a, 13d]

It seems to me it's pretty straightforward thinking when two countries with differences both have nuclear weapons. At least that seems to be the way the world has worked for 60 years. The Israeli people don't appear to concerned, yet will back their government in certain situations, which all seems pretty fair and level-headed to me. Thanks for you comment.

reply to post by EFGuy

Thanks...saw that in my other thread...which is where I pulled the OP from. Also read it when I was looking for the most recent one. There doesn't appear to have that much of a change in the year and a half between polls. I like the way the Feb 2010 poll focused on the widely discussed election fiasco. Good stuff.

Hopefully this will enlighten those on both sides of the fence who seem to think that there's no separation between the Israeli people and government, or the Iranian people and government. Ditch the whack job leadership of both countries and I'd bet you find two progressive, forward-thinking nations not that dissimilar from one another.

Let's hope this happens, Legion. Thanks for your comment.

OP, I'm personally interested your take on this hot topic?

reply to post by ~Lucidity


No worries man. The sooner Netanyahu and Ahmedinejad's puppet-string controlling Mullahs are relegated to the pages of bad history, the better off the ME will be.

What's the point
Those are the Peoples thoughts....... the Government, however, views things a little differently.

And who calls the shots?


How many Americans were truly supportive of the War on Iraq, not that many I bet.

Good find none the less Lucidity

I guess the point was just to state the obvious, that people are not their governments, and to help us relate on a more human level, which might 1.) help us make some actual progress against bad government that doesn't really represent us, no matter what country we're in, and makes bad government decisions and 2.) make us think more about the human consequences when we're duped into supporting wars that hurt other humans just like us.

reply to post by ~Lucidity

I totally agree

Hope that one day this "divide and conquer" TPTB have brought on to us, backfires and divides us and them.

reply to post by Skittle


My take, isn't all that complicated, and I pretty much stated it in my opening comments. Most governments are not the people. They don't always represent the people fairly or accurately. They make decisions for the people based on the agendas of those who have the real control, which rarely if ever actually resemble what the people are thinking or what the people want.

And it's dangerous for us to forget this. It can propagate false realities and perceptions, lead us to make assumptions that are not valid, and lead us to decisions that are not well informed. Decisions like supporting or opposing sanctions and wars. Decisions like assuming that all Israelis support their government actions.

Along these same lines, I think the terminology we use in our debates with each other is critically important. Saying Israel or Israelis, for example, when instead what we mean is the Israeli government, or even more accurately a small faction within the Israeli government, is dangerous.

We may know what we mean when we type a word or a phrase, we may be just taking a shortcut way of expressing a very big idea, but when we do we're making a very big assumption that the person reading it will know what we mean. However, chances are far greater the reader may not know what we mean, and that in turn can propagate some false assumptions on the readers part.

Take for example, the case of Israel's relationship with Iran. Could it be that it is not the people who are so overly concerned about pushing the nuclear "disarmament" of Iran for over 15 years, but only the Likud party in their government?

Do some people still assume their government makes decisions based on everyone's best interests? That the government does only what is in the people's best interests and will protect them? Sure. That's true in a lot of countries. But that's changing too. And it has to for us to get a clear picture of the state of the world. We not only have to realize this for ourselves, but we have to have enough empathy and logic in us to realize that what's true for us as people is also true for Israeli people and Iranian people and Russian people and, well, you get the picture.

Sometimes in the midst of all the geopolitical games and maneuvering and rhetoric, simple things get lost. Simple things like people and humanity as a whole.

As to the polls themselves, well we all know polls aren't perfect, that it's getting harder to trust any information these days, and that everyone has an agenda. That being said, it appears that this Iranian poll in particular, does a pretty good unemotional, factual, and realistic job of level setting both the good and bad about the situation Iran and in getting a reading what is going on in the people's minds and why.

Overall, I think we're better served to look at things like these polls or better still talk to people and use our own common sense and logic rather than to listen to controlled, single-threaded information and rhetoric from institutions like government and "news" media that no one takes the time to really analyze to the level it needs to be analyzed to. Here again, we seem to have turned over out trust to the media and we are realizing more and more that what we get from them is worthless...filtered, controlled, and controlling.

reply to post by Village Idiot


Thanks. I think most people would agree if they think about things on a simpler level, don't you? Some days, I sit here and think that someone out there is making things far more complicated than they need to be intentionally. To cloud the issues and further distract us. You're right. It is a plan...by someone. (I say someone rather than TPTB for a reason, but that's a whole other discussion...I almost hijacked my own thread here by typing paragraphs and paragraphs that I had second thoughts about and deleted )

I've come to an understanding that it is better if Iran has nukes. It just is. it's all over after wards. They have nukes, now war, and no one cares anymore. So everyone has to live with it until some new pile of guns get invented.

If it preserves peace until the US government is replaced with a better one in November or far away, so be it.

[edit on 14-7-2010 by Gorman91]

Well, in a way, it would level the playing field and make things more equal for them in other areas. Someone clearly wants to control the chokepoints they control, and that is the reason they are a target in this propaganda war. I don't believe Iran is run by idiots. I don't believe that even if they were to have nukes that they would use them, or that there's a greater danger that they opposed to anyone else, particularly countries harboring known terrorists, would trade or sell or misplace them so that they wind up in the hands of radical elements. They have demonstrated that they have a non-aggressive, non-warmongering history. And they would most likely follow India's no-first-use philosophy.

[edit on 7/14/2010 by ~Lucidity]