With President Barack Obama seeking to engage the Arab world with his speech in Cairo, Americans' confidence that there will ever be peace in the Middle East is at near-record lows. Only 32% of U.S. adults surveyed by USA Today and Gallup in late May believe "there will come a time when Israel and the Arab nations will be able to settle their differences and live in peace"; 66% disagree.
Current attitudes about the chances for Mideast peace are nearly the most negative that Gallup has found in more than a decade of polling on this question. The only time fewer Americans were optimistic about Arab-Israeli peace was in July 2006, when only 27% believed it could be achieved. This coincided with the Israeli-Hezbollah war in southern Lebanon, and followed the election victory of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories in January.
Americans' outlook for Mideast peace has since remained quite downbeat. However, as the long-term trend shows, public optimism about the conflict has varied, and has a history of rebounding from pessimistic lows -- particularly after U.S.-brokered peace talks in 1999, 2003, and 2005.
One thing that does not appear to be a factor, at least in terms of the recent trend, is politics. There has been little change over the past year -- spanning the change in presidential administrations from that of Republican George W. Bush to that of Democrat Obama -- in the outlook for peace among rank-and-file Republicans and among rank-and-file Democrats.
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