Sunday, February 9, 2014

SHOCKER: 70% of Jewish Israelis don’t trust Obama

02.09.2014


A vast majority of Jewish Israelis don’t believe President Obama has their interests at heart in rounds of talks with the Palestinians, according to a poll by Sof Hashavua, or The Weekend, a sister publication of the Jerusalem Post that is Israel’s third most popular newspaper.

It’s the latest bad news for Secretary of State John Kerry, who has spent months on shuttle diplomacy trying to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together for peace negotiations and now finds himself the butt of satire and ridicule by the right wing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday said the “curse-Kerry competition [is] the latest popular sport.”

It wasn’t always this way. Last spring, 61 percent of Israelis had confidence in Obama, writes Karl Vick, the Jerusalem bureau chief for Time. But a Western deal with Iran to freeze Tehran’s nuclear program and Kerry’s pursuit of  framework for peace talks have sent Obama’s ratings south, Vick says. The Sof Hashavua poll finds that 70% of Jewish Israelis don’t trust the U.S. president.

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