Why would a professor of political science talk about the ping-pong balls that are used for lotteries? What would they have to do with some Americans’ attitudes toward Israel and the Palestinian Arabs?
To Ken Goldstein, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, these ping-pong balls are a handy metaphor for the amount of knowledge swirling in people’s brains that they “take samples” of when they decide to take a stand on an issue.
And the more such “ping-pong balls” they have, the harder it is to shift them from their stands, Goldstein told an audience of about 65 last week attending the annual meeting of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations at the Charles Allis Art Museum.
As Goldstein found in the study he was commissioned to do by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella organization of such groups as the MJCCR, many educated and significant leaders in the African American, Hispanic and mainline Protestant communities have in their minds very little knowledge about the Israel-Arab conflict.
And that means “it doesn’t take much new knowledge” to get such people to “change around” in their views, Goldstein said in his address titled “Talking about Israel: Influencing Perceptions and Changing Opinions.”
That means even a few dedicated people, such as the two Arab students at UW-Madison (Fayyad Sbaihat and Mohammed Abed of Al-Awda Wisconsin) who lead the effort to get the UW System to divest from companies doing business with Israel, “can do an awful lot of damage,” Goldstein said.
Israel may have fairly general popular support now among the U.S. public, but that support “can be very fragile,” he said.
‘Strikingly consistent’
Goldstein’s study, carried out in February and March, involved interviewing individuals and meeting with focus groups in St. Louis, Los Angeles and Madison.
His assignment, he said, was to discover the “attitudes, knowledge base” and “what arguments could move” leading figures in the African American, Hispanic and mainline Protestant communities.
He warned the MJCCR audience members that they “have to be careful about what people like me tell you about their research.” He acknowledged that his sample — more than 100 people in each locale — is small and has a large potential margin of error.
Nevertheless, the responses were “strikingly consistent” and surprising. “I did not think I would find what I found,” he said.
In addition to having little intellectual knowledge, Goldstein found that the “knowledge” most of the people he met did have was based on personal experience and contacts — a Palestinian roommate in college, for example — or testimony by church members who traveled to the Israel-administered territories, saw some Palestinian civilians being “humiliated” at a checkpoint, then spoke about what they perceived back at church on a Sunday morning.
Moreover, there exists in these communities a “universal feeling” that “Israel is very strong economically and militarily” while “the Palestinians are weak.” Messages that didn’t express empathy for the Palestinians did not move people at all, Goldstein said.
Finally, virtually all the people Goldstein spoke with — whether pro-Israel or anti-Israel — favored a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he said.
Goldstein said his study especially taught him “how important personal contact is” in shaping public perceptions of Israel and the Middle East. “From what I’ve seen in Wisconsin and in my research, the crucial battle is fought on the grassroots,” he said.
And that is where organizations like the MJCCR are vitally important, he said.
In her executive director’s report, Paula Simon also emphasized how individual actions can “make a difference.”
She cited not only how the two Arab students “made life unpredictable” for her during the past year, but also how a Jewish individual like University of Wisconsin-Whitewater freshman Molly Fields helped defeat the Israel divestment resolution there by speaking to the faculty senate this past February.
And she told the audience members that “every one of you can make a difference” through such activities as volunteering in the MJCCR’s literacy program, calling legislators or recommending a teacher for participation in the MJCCR’s Holocaust teacher training program.
At the event, the MJCCR presented its Saul Sorrin Award to Liza Wiemer, and elected new officers and board members. (See What’s Nu?)
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