WASHINGTON, June 4 (UPI) -- June 5 marks 40 years since the start of the Six-Day War, when in 1967 Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It was Israel's first major confrontation against Arab armies since the 1948 War of Independence, not counting the Suez expedition launched jointly with Britain and France in 1956, but that was rebuffed by U.S. political clout.

During six grueling days of intense fighting, Israel captured the Sinai and Gaza from Egypt, the Golan from Syria and the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan.

Forty years later Israel is at peace -- albeit a precarious one -- with two of its three former enemies: Egypt and Jordan. Today Israel has returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for diplomatic relations and a peace treaty. Israel has also made peace with Jordan, which in turn conceded the West Bank to the Palestinians. And Israel has established diplomatic relations with Mauritania, as well as commercial exchanges with Morocco, Qatar, Oman and a number of other countries in the Arab world.

But peace is still far off from the Mideast horizon. Relations with Syria remain as tense as ever, and relations with the Palestinians continue to be patchy at best.

Now 40 years after the 1967 war, the nature of the battle has changed. Part of the conflict has shifted from the battlefields of the Middle East to the airwaves of international satellite television channels, to the Internet and to the halls of the U.S. Congress where Jewish-Americans and Arab-Americans have taken to broadcasting their side of the story and to lobbying senators and representatives on Capitol Hill. Not that the violence in the Levant has stopped; it's just that the theaters of operation have shifted.

Cognizant that any lasting peace in the Middle East will only be achieved if Arabs and Jews work together, Zogby International in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now and the Arab American Institute has conducted two polls, one of Jewish-Americans and one of Arab-Americans. The results indicate that despite their political differences both sides share the same fears and same desires.

Asked how closely they follow the situation in the Middle East, 54.8 percent of Jewish-Americans said very closely, compared with 55.2 percent of Arab-Americans. And while 73.5 percent of Jewish-Americans said they were pessimistic about the situation in the area, 63.4 percent of Arab-Americans were just as pessimistic over political developments in the area.

And if 79.9 percent of Jewish-Americans thought that President George W. Bush was not effective (53 percent believe he is not at all effective and 26.9 percent say he is not very effective) in his efforts at marshalling through a negotiated settlement between Arabs and Israelis, 76.4 percent of Arab-Americans hold the same belief. Again, among Arab-Americans, 56 percent said he was not effective while 21 percent said he was very effective.

Jewish-Americans remain divided over the president's lack of involvement in the area; 40.7 percent believe Bush is leaning towards Israel, 34.1 percent feel the president is disengaged from the peace process. On the Arab-American side, 21 percent feel that Bush is not engaged.

Although 67.9 percent of Jewish-Americans said the position adopted by a presidential candidate would not affect how they vote in a U.S. presidential election, they said they would vote for a candidate who promised to take an active role in the Mideast peace process. And 64.2 percent of Arab-Americans also said they would be influenced by a candidate's promise to promote peace.

But if as might be expected, an overwhelming majority of Jewish-Americans -- 94.3 percent -- believe Israel has the right to exist within secure borders, surprisingly, 70.6 percent of Arab-Americans feel the same. Only a small number -- 3.8 percent of Arab-Americans -- strongly disagree.

However, when the question is reversed and Jewish-Americans are asked if they support a Palestinian state, close to 90 percent of American Jews agreed -- whether strongly are somewhat -- that Palestinians have a right to a secure and independent state of their own; 96 percent of Arab-Americans polled support the idea. And 86.6 percent of Jewish-Americans and 80.9 percent of Arab-Americans feel that achieving peace among Palestinians and Israelis is of vital importance to U.S. national security. Yet when asked if they believe that Arab-Americans believe Israelis have the right to live in peace, only 14 percent of Jewish-Americans said they did.

Close to 70 percent of Jewish-Americans and close to 80 percent of Arab-Americans agree that the two communities must work together if peace is ever to be achieved.

Israel's continued expansion of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has long been one of the conflict's most contentious issues. In 2005 Israel evacuated all settlements from Gaza and four from the West Bank.

Asked if Israel should freeze settlement construction because it undermines the prospects for achieving peace, 62.5 percent of Jewish-Americans agreed to a settlement freeze; 76.3 percent of Arab-Americans strongly oppose the building of settlements.

As for the Arab Peace Initiative -- formally known as the Saudi Peace Initiative -- it gets the backing of 70.2 percent of the Jewish-American community (31.2 percent who strongly support it and 39 percent who somewhat support it). Among the Arab-American community the Arab initiative gets 81.5 percent support (56.6 percent strongly support and 24.9 somewhat support it).

And finally, nearly half of the 501 Jewish-Americans polled May 22-23 -- 46.5 percent -- see Saudi Arabia's intervention in an effort to mediate between warring Palestinian factions positively, while 61.5 percent of the same number of Arab-Americans polled May 22-26 feel the same. The poll has a 4.5 percentage point margin of error.

--

(e-mail: claude@upi.com)