19
On the other hand, Americans’ attitudes about these issues were very strongly
related to their thermometer ratings of “the Muslim people” and “the Palestinians.”
26
Understandably, those who felt warm toward the Palestinians tended to favor creating a
state for them, whereas those who felt cold did not. In multiple regressions, feelings
about the Palestinians dominated everything else, though there were indications of some
independent effects of “active part” internationalism and the goals of securing adequate
supplies of energy and (perhaps) promoting human rights.
27
By doing regression analyses that exclude feelings about the Palestinians it is
possible to get a sharper idea of what goals Americans sought to accomplish through
Middle East policies. As Table 5.2 indicates, those who favored actively working for a
Palestinian state tended to want to pursue the humanitarian goals of “promoting and
defending human rights in other countries,” and “improving the standard of living of less
developed nations,” goals of clear relevance to the Palestinians’ unpleasant life under
military occupation. “Active part” internationalism, which is associated with support for
a variety of cooperative and altruistic foreign policies (especially humanitarian foreign
aid), also had an independent effect.
(INSERT TABLE 5.2 ABOUT HERE)
Also striking in Table 5.2 are the results concerning self-interested goals that a
strategically calculating American might seek through U.S. Middle East policies:
combating terrorism and securing oil supplies. The terrorism goal was totally unrelated
to support or opposition to working for a Palestinian state, indicating no net tendency at
all for Americans to seek such a state in order to defuse the Palestinians’ terrorist attacks
(or to oppose such a state so as not to “reward” terrorism.) On the other hand, embrace of
Convention