Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

362 // GARY E. RUBIN
ignores the needs and values of the other in pursuit of its own interests and world
outlook.
In sum, African American nationalists, mainstream leaders, and intellectuals
have strongly expressed views on Israel that many Jews regard as both inaccurate
and harmful to their interests. Scholars have differed substantially on the seriousness
of the attack and its centrality to Black-Jewish relations. The questions
remain as to how widespread negative attitudes toward Israel are among African
Americans and what their practical consequences might be.
II
When Cynthia Ozick wrote about "uninformed assaults on Israel by black
Americans," which "black Americans" did she mean? When Paul Berman spoke
of a "great point of disagreement between a large number of blacks and Jews" over
Israel and Zionism, what precisely is meant by a "large number"?
The unacknowledged methodology of authors like Ozick and Berman is to
quote African Americans who have made what they consider to be problematic
pronouncements on Israel and then to assume that these statements have widespread
backing among Blacks in general. However, there is no need to speculate
about the attitudes of the African American population toward Israel; solid survey
data exist that specify their opinions in some detail.
Like any data source, public opinion surveys are hardly perfect in measuring a
community's attitudes on any given subject. Still, existing surveys have at least
three advantages over Ozick's and Berman's speculations in assessing African
Americans' opinions and feelings about Israel. First, these studies, while sponsored
by Jewish organizations with a keen interest in gauging support for Israel
among the general public, were actually conducted by well-established firms
employing standard scientific instruments for measuring public opinion. 21
Second, while Berman, Ozick, and similar writers tend to cite a few choice quotes
and to extrapolate their conclusions to African Americans more generally, the surveys
base their findings on interviews with large and scientifically selected samples.
22 Third, these surveys, conducted by different firms and organizations over
a twenty-five-year period, yield data that are consistent from study to study and
therefore reinforce the validity of each survey's findings. Their conclusions are
therefore much more solid than the mere supposition that citations attributed to
visible individuals speak for larger sections of the community as a whole.
An analysis of thirteen public opinion surveys taken between 1970 and 1977
yielded two major findings typical of studies done on Black Americans' attitudes
toward Israel:
—Black respondents' level of support for Israel tended to be lower than
that of whites, by an average of 13 percent. This comparison held true
at every level of education and for every age group.