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Saturday, October 18, 2014
Poll: ISIS Has Almost No Support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – But America Has Little More

Poll: ISIS Has Almost No Support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – But
America Has Little More

The polls were conducted in September by a leading commercial survey firm in
the Middle East, using face-to-face interviews by experienced local
professionals. The sample was a random, geographic probability national
sample of 1,000 respondents (nationals only, excluding expatriates or
refugees) in each country, yielding a statistical margin of error of
approximately 3 percent.

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of ISIS?
Saudi Arabia:
very positive 2% fairly positive 3% fairly negative 17% very negative 73%
Don't know 3% No Answer 3%
Egypt:
very positive 1% fairly positive 2% fairly negative 3% very negative 82%
Don't know 5% No Answer 6%
Lebanon:
very positive 0% fairly positive 0% fairly negative 1% very negative 99%

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of Hamas?
Saudi Arabia:
very positive 20% fairly positive 32% fairly negative 30% very negative
14% Don't know 4% No Answer 1%
Egypt:
very positive 10% fairly positive 23% fairly negative 31% very negative
33% Don't know 2% No Answer 1%

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of Muslim Brotherhood?
Saudi Arabia:
very positive 10% fairly positive 21% fairly negative 28% very negative
37% Don't know 3% No Answer 1%
Egypt:
very positive 11% fairly positive 24% fairly negative 28% very negative
32% Don't know 2% No Answer 3%

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of Hezbollah?
Shiites in Lebanon:
very positive 90% fairly positive 2% fairly negative 3% very negative 5%
Christians in Lebanon:
very positive 31% fairly positive 8% fairly negative 4% very negative 58%
Sunnis in Lebanon:
very positive 5% fairly positive 3% fairly negative 7% very negative 85%

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of the United States?
Saudi Arabia:
very positive 2% fairly positive 10% fairly negative 37% very negative 47%
Don't know 2% No Answer 2%
Egypt:
very positive 3% fairly positive 9% fairly negative 33% very negative 52%
Don't know 2% No Answer 1%
Lebanon:
very positive 15% fairly positive 10% fairly negative 18% very negative
57%

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of Iran
Saudi Arabia: Favorable 13%
Egypt: Favorable 13%
Lebanon: Favorable 46% (Sunni 12% Christian 35% Shiite 96%)

Considering their recent policies, do you have a very positive, fairly
positive, fairly negative or very negative view of Syria
Saudi Arabia: Favorable 12%
Egypt: Favorable 14%
Lebanon: Favorable 52% (Sunni 14% Christian 47%, Shiite 97%)

=================
ISIS Has Almost No Support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – But America
Has Little More
David Pollock October 14, 2014
http://fikraforum.org/?p=5608

How much grass-roots support does the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham
(ISIS) enjoy in key “coalition” countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or
Lebanon? Until today, one could only guess at the answer. Recent news
reports about the arrests of ISIS adherents in all three of these countries
add urgency to the question.

Now, however, a trio of new polls – the first ones of their kind – provides
the hard data on which to make this judgment. The polls were conducted in
September by a leading commercial survey firm in the Middle East, using
face-to-face interviews by experienced local professionals. The sample was a
random, geographic probability national sample of 1,000 respondents
(nationals only, excluding expatriates or refugees) in each country,
yielding a statistical margin of error of approximately 3 percent.

The most striking as well as encouraging finding is that ISIS has almost no
popular support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Lebanon – even among Sunnis.
Among Egyptians, a mere 3 percent express a favorable opinion of ISIS. In
Saudi Arabia, the figure is slightly higher: 5 percent rate ISIS positively.
In Lebanon, not a single Christian, Shiite, or Druze respondent viewed ISIS
favorably; and even among Lebanon’s Sunnis, that figure is almost equally
low at 1 percent.


Nevertheless, there is a real difference between almost no support and no
support at all. Since 3 percent of adult Egyptians say they approve of ISIS,
that is nearly 1.5 million people. For Saudis, the 5 percent of adult
nationals who support ISIS means over half a million people. And even in
tiny Lebanon, 1 percent of adult Sunnis equals a few thousand ISIS
sympathizers. In any of these places, this is enough to harbor at least a
few cells of serious troublemakers.

Another major caveat is that the nearly uniform opposition to ISIS does not
extend to other political Islamist organizations. In Egypt, for example, a
surprisingly high proportion – one-third of the total population – voices a
positive attitude toward Hamas. In Saudi Arabia, that figure is even higher
at 52 percent. Still more surprising, despite the Egyptian and Saudi
governments’ relentless crackdowns and propaganda campaigns against the
Muslim Brotherhood, is the comparable percentage who say they view the group
favorably: 35 percent in Egypt and 31 percent in Saudi Arabia. By way of
comparison, Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist organization, receives just 12-13
percent popular approval among Egypt’s or Saudi Arabia’s overwhelmingly
Sunni Muslim populations.

On these and other issues, there is very little variation among Egyptians by
various demographic categories. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood rates 37
percent approval in urban concentrations like Cairo or Alexandria; 35
percent approval in Upper Egypt; and 33 percent approval in the Delta
countryside. The subsample of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, fewer than 10
percent of the total, is too small to be statistically significant.

In Lebanon, by contrast, even as nearly all reject ISIS across the board,
opinions about other Islamist groups are highly polarized by sect – but not
always in the way one might expect. Hezbollah, as expected, is rated
favorably by 92 percent of Shiites. Among Christians, that figure drops
dramatically, yet still hovers near 40 percent. But among Lebanon’s Sunnis,
a mere 8 percent have a positive view of Hezbollah. More counterintuitive,
however, is the relatively low level of support for Hamas among Lebanon’s
Sunni Muslims, especially so soon after the latest war in Gaza. Only
one-fourth have even a “fairly positive” view of the Palestinian Islamist
movement.

A further major point is that shared opposition to ISIS does not mean high
ratings for the United States. In Egypt and in Saudi Arabia alike, America
now has a dismal 12 percent approval number. In Lebanon, that number doubles
to 25 percent, but again along a sharply polarized sectarian gradient: from
39 percent among Christians, to 30 percent among Sunnis or Druze, down to a
measly 3 percent approval among the plurality Shiite population. To put
these figures in perspective, China rates 38 percent positive among Saudis,
40 percent positive among Egyptians, and 54 percent positive among Lebanese.

One final key finding concerns popular attitudes toward two other common
enemies of ISIS: Syria and Iran. In both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, favorable
attitudes toward either the Iranian or the Syrian government barely make it
into double digits. The relevant numbers in each country are stuck at merely
12-14 percent approval.

But in Lebanon, once again, sectarian polarization is the rule, in this case
to an astonishing degree. Among the country’s Shiites, both the Iranian and
even the Syrian governments enjoy a 96-97 percent approval rating.
Conversely, among Lebanon’s Sunnis, Iran gets just 12 percent favorable
reviews and Syria just 14 percent. Interestingly, however, Lebanese
Christians fall somewhere in the middle on this measure: over a third (37
percent) give Iran at least a “fairly positive” rating, and nearly half (47
percent) say the same about Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime is
sometimes viewed as their protector against ISIS and other Islamic
extremists.

What do all these numbers mean for the current U.S. campaign against ISIS?
Public opinion can be fickle, but for now several policy implications emerge
from this analysis. First, Washington and its allies need not fear that ISIS
might attract a mass following in these nearby Arab societies, or that a
strong popular backlash might develop against U.S. airstrikes, or against
our other Arab allies in this fight. But second, the United States would be
well advised to target its actions very narrowly against ISIS – not against
other Islamist groups that have recently come under American fire, and could
well add to their substantial popularity as a result. And third, any U.S.
overtures either to Assad or to Iran, as potential partners against ISIS,
run a great risk both of further alienating both the Egyptian and the Saudi
publics, and of further inflaming the dangerous sectarian polarization among
Lebanese at the same time.

David Pollock is the Kaufman fellow at The Washington Institute and the
director of Fikra Forum.

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