Two-thirds of Israeli Jews believe President Obama will fail to prevent Iran's development of nuclear weapons. - Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

(Washington, D.C.) — “Two-thirds of Jewish Israelis believe U.S. president Barack Obama will fail to  keep his promise to prevent Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, while only 27 percent believe he will succeed,” reports the Jerusalem Post. “This according to the monthly Peace Index poll taken by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, which was released on Thursday.”

“The survey of 601 respondents  constituting a representative sample of the adult population of Israel was conducted last Monday and Tuesday, the days that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Obama in Washington and delivered his address to the United Nations General Assembly,” noted the Post. “The headlines in the days ahead of the poll were about  the Iranian charm offensive at the UN and the phone conversation between Obama  and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.”

Excerpts:

• Asked whether the US was projecting  weakness on Iran, affirmative answers were given by 60% of Israelis, including  64% of Jewish respondents and 40% of Arab respondents. Only 22% of Israelis said  the US was projecting power, including 20% of the Jewish respondents and 31% of  the Arab respondents.
• When asked the same question about Syria, the  results were similar.
• Sixty-three percent of Israelis said the US was  projecting weakness.
• Among Jews, 66% answered affirmatively and 49% of  Arab respondents said yes. Twenty-three percent said the US was projecting power  on the issue, including 22% of Jewish respondents and 28% of the Arabs  surveyed.
• Israeli Jews and Arabs differed starkly in their opinion on  whether Iran was really changing its position.
• Eighty percent of Israeli  Jews said they believed that Rouhani’s UN speech calling for an agreement with  the West was merely a change in rhetoric and not in Iran’s goals.
• Only  14% of Israeli Jews said they believed that it does constitute a real change.  Among Israeli Arabs, 47% said a real change was under way, while 42% believe  that only the rhetoric has changed.
• Seventy-seven percent of Jewish  Israelis said Netanyahu was right to continue warning the world of the danger  Iran poses, while 14% said he should leave that job to American and European  leaders.
• On the Palestinian issue, 61% of Jewish respondents and 88% of  Arab respondents are in favor of peace negotiations between Israel and the  Palestinian Authority, while 34% of the Jewish respondents and 8% of the Arab  respondents are against the talks.
• When asked about the chances of the  current talks leading to an agreement, 81% of the Jewish respondents and 64% of  the Arabs believe the chances are low that they will lead to a significant  agreement, while 14% of the Jewish public and 20% of the Arab public believe the  chances are high.