Poll: Obama not seen as pro-Israel

JERUSALEM, June 19 (UPI) -- A scant 6 percent of Jewish Israelis view the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama as pro-Israel, results of a Jerusalem Post poll indicate.

The poll, released Friday, also indicated 50 percent of people surveyed consider Obama's foreign policies more pro-Palestinian rather than pro-Israeli, while 36 percent said they were neutral.

In May, another Jerusalem Post poll showed 31 percent considered the Obama administration pro-Israel, 14 percent thought it was pro-Palestinian and 40 percent said it was neutral, the newspaper said.

One explanation for the plummet in Israelis' approval of Obama's policies is the United States' opposition to continued settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza, the Post said. The United States considers a freeze on construction in the Jewish settlements as key toward achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The poll sampled 500 Israeli Jewish adults this week after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu voiced support for a demilitarized Palestinian state. The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.