Poll: Jewish Approval of Obama Is Steady, Despite Israel Tensions
President Obama’s status among American Jews remains unaffected despite recent tensions with Israel’s government, according to a Gallup Poll.
Obama’s approval rating among U.S. Jews was 60 percent in June, the polling company said, consistent both with earlier months.
Also, Jews still consistently approved of the president’s performance at an average of 14 percentage points above the general public, Gallup said in its release Tuesday. Obama’s overall approval rating in June was 46 percent.
Approval of Obama’s performance among Jews had spiked in May at 68 percent and overall at 50 percent in the wake of the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, but settled in June.
There was no statistically significant change in the wake of Obama’s May 19 Middle East policy speech in which he called for talks with the Palestinians to resume based on 1967 lines with land swaps, Gallup said.
“Sixty-five percent approved of him for the April 1-May 18 time period, and 62 percent approved from May 19-June 30,” it said.
The speech had earned Obama an angry rebuke from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gallup tracks approval of the president in daily telephone interviews.
Approval rates among Jews tend to vary to a greater degree because of the relatively small sample size of about 350 with a margin of error of 7 percentage points, as opposed to 2 points for the 21,000 interviews among the wider population.
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