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The Iranian People: Israel Shouldn’t Exist

Monday, July 31, 2006

A recent poll of the Iranian populace reveals widespread agreement with the radical views of their president, including with his quest for nuclear weapons. Quite a bit of stock has been placed in the belief that a large percentage of the Iranian people do not agree with their president’s rabidly anti-Jew views. A “chilling new poll,” however, reveals a different story: The Iranians are right behind their president, and not only concerning his views of Israel. In fact, an American president right now would no doubt be overjoyed with comparable approval ratings. “Contrary to popular opinion, it seems that the Iranian people overwhelmingly agree with their president’s view that Israel has no right to exist,” reported the Spectator on July 27. When asked if the State of Israel is illegitimate and should not exist, 67 percent of Iranians surveyed by one of the most prestigious U.S. pollsters agreed and only 9 percent disagreed. Even more astonishingly, this overwhelming hatred of the State of Israel was shared consistently by all sub-sections of the population, regardless of either age or gender. The Zogby poll, which will be published by Reader’s Digest next month, also found that 55.9 percent of Iranians agree that their country should play the dominant military and diplomatic role in the Middle East, with just 12.3 percent disagreeing. When asked which issue should be their government’s top priority, 41 percent of respondents said economic reforms, 27 percent said development of nuclear weapons, and just 23 percent said expansion of individual freedoms. The Spectator commented (emphasis ours throughout): Given the widespread poverty plaguing the country, it is no surprise that most respondents cared primarily about the economy; but the fact that over a quarter of the population believe that the overriding priority should be to build nuclear weapons, a number larger even than that of those who want greater freedoms, is extremely depressing. To make matters even worse, the survey was conducted before the present crisis erupted two weeks ago; opinion today would probably be even more radicalized. … If the findings of the poll are accurate—and there is no reason to doubt that they are—they put to rest one of the central myths about Iran: the claim, shared by most Western analysts, that ordinary Iranians are increasingly at odds with their rulers. While many young Iranians may superficially have become more pro-American in recent years, even they support the views of the leadership, at least when it comes to geopolitics. As the Trumpet has stated before, all political groups in Iran—both reformists and conservatives—are on the same side as far as their quest for regional supremacy goes. This poll now confirms that the vast majority of the people themselves are also agreed with the major policies of their violence-instigating government. The Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis of July 20 stated, “[T]he Bush White House has made it clear that it supports the Iranian population resolving the leadership question in Iran, rather than seeing Iran and the U.S. forced into direct military confrontation.” This means that the very thing that is being touted as the solution—an Iranian population that will at some point bring about a change in leadership favorable to America—does not even exist. So much for a solid foreign policy. As the title of the Spectator article stated, “Don’t seek reassurance from the Iranians.”