If Israelis could participate in the Republication primaries in the United States, Donald Trump would likely win a considerable number of votes, according to two comprehensive public opinion polls published recently. The Peace Index published by the Israel Democracy Institute on March 6 shows that a majority (61%) of the Jewish public thinks that Trump’s positions are very friendly or fairly friendly to Israel. At best, they are unaware of Trump’s racist views on minorities like Muslims and immigrants. At worst, they do know them and admire them.
The experts at the American Pew Research Center, which surveyed 5,601 Israeli adults between October 2014 and May 2015, found that almost every other Jew (48%) agrees or strongly agrees that Arabs should be expelled or driven out of Israel; 46% opposes or strongly opposes this racist idea, which bears strong resemblance to the messages Trump preaches. According to these two new polls, we can certainly assume that human rights defender Russian President Vladimir Putin and knight of democracy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would have gotten much better results at the voting booths than the leaders of the Israeli center and left, Zionist Camp leader Isaac Herzog and Meretz Party head Zehava Galon.
