Haaretz poll: Most Israelis see Obama as fair and friendly

Haaretz poll: 27% of Israelis think Obama is anti-Semitic

Or is it?

Despite the fact both these reports are written by the same Ha’aretz reporter, only one of them is accompanied by an explanatory graphic. Care to guess which of them is?

Clue:

Haaretz misled readers to give the impression that an overwhelming majority of Israelis see US President Barack Obama as “fair and friendly” toward the country, the newspaper’s pollster, Tel Aviv University professor Camil Fuchs (an unfortunate name for the Middle East I would think – ed), said on Sunday.

Both the English and Hebrew editions of Friday’s Haaretz led with the headline “Poll: Most Israelis see Obama as fair, friendly toward Israel.”

The English edition elaborated near a picture of Obama that “69% say Obama is fair and friendly.”

The story itself gives no numbers, but the lead says “A sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair.”

The English edition contains no graphic distributing the actual numbers, either online or in print.

The print and online versions of the newspaper’s Hebrew edition included a graphic indicating that just 18 percent of respondents considered Obama “friendly” toward Israel, 3 percentage points fewer than the 21% who called the president “hostile” to the Jewish state.

Ten percent did not know, and 51% defined Obama’s approach to Israel using the Hebrew word “inyani,” which can be translated as “matter-of-fact” or “businesslike,” but not as fair.

Fuchs, who chairs Tel Aviv University’s statistics department, said he received many reactions from people around the world who were surprised by the poll’s headline. He distanced himself from the headline and criticized the way his poll was presented.

“What can I do? Only the editor writes the headlines,” Fuchs said.

“When they write the number 69 together, it is correct but misleading. They could just as easily have combined the hostile and inyani categories and gotten a different large number.”

Fuchs was disturbed to hear that the English edition did not include the full distribution of the numbers. He also disagreed with the translation of the word “inyani.”

When told it had been translated as “fair,” he responded: “I definitely would not have translated it as fair. They must have a problem with English.”

The story has been removed from Haaretz’s online print edition archive (not true; I just linked to it above – ed). An edition of the story that remains online has been rewritten with no reference to the issue in the original headline. It instead focuses on the 27% of respondents who said Obama is anti-Semitic.

A Likud source called the original Haaretz headline a “trick intended to convince the public to like Obama more and Netanyahu less.”

Polls taken over the past week by the Geocartographic Institute for Channel 2’s Meet the Press program and by the Dahaf Institute for Yediot Aharonot found that a majority of the Israeli public blamed the American administration for the crisis in US-Israel relations.

Other polls sponsored by The Jerusalem Post and the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute have found that Israelis see Obama as significantly more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel.

Haaretz English Edition editor Charlotte Halle responded that “Haaretz published a fair and accurate representation of the survey conducted by Prof. Camil Fuchs at the request of Haaretz. Any attempt to claim otherwise by another newspaper is false.”

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

9:05AM: Joke of the day [warning: do not read while drinking coffee]

9:04AM: Here’s an Israeli organ-related story not involving a pack of lies.

Doctors at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva earlier this month performed the country’s first kidney transplant involving a donor and recipient with different blood types – a breakthrough that could increase kidney transplants involving live donors by 40 percent.

The kidney recipient was Ortal Mahlev, 18. The Herzliya resident, who has type B blood, received the kidney from her father, 51-year-old Shlomo Mahlev, who has type A blood.

“Blood type indicators are antibodies found on red blood cells and on the internal lining of blood vessels, and they attack a foreign blood type that enters the body,” said Dr. Alexander Yusim, who heads the Renal Transplantation Unit and Nephrology Institute at Beilinson.

Yusim’s team of doctors carried out the transplant by neutralizing the antibodies, he said.

The method for neutralizing the antibodies takes at least two weeks, making it impossible to use for patients who need a new kidney immediately.

The procedure is based on technology developed a decade ago in Japan, where organs are rarely transplanted from dead bodies due to restrictions of the ancient Japanese Shinto religion. Western doctors, particularly in the United States, Germany and Sweden, subsequently began using the method.

Nearly 700 Israelis are awaiting a kidney transplant, but medical officials believe 40 percent of those suffering from kidney failure have so far been unable to receive the organ from their relatives due to differing blood types.

Last year 83 kidneys were transplanted from dead donors and 69 from live donors.

The transplant process involves several stages, said Yusim.

“First the recipient’s blood is transferred into a machine that executes a blood plasma fractionation, a method whereby blood is broken up into red blood cells that are later re-inserted into the body and the blood serum which contains the antibodies that are removed from the body,” he said. “The serum is then replaced by a protein with water solubility (albumin). The body is then injected with gamma globulin in order to prevent the antibodies from acting.”

In the next stage, the patient is injected with a chemical preparation known as rituximab, which neutralizes B white blood cells that manufacture new antibodies. Doctors can implant the organ from a donor with a different blood type after the process is repeated three or four times and the number of antibodies falls to zero or nearly zero.

What’s the bet this one won’t make the front page of a Swedish tabloid?

6:00AM: A must see video.

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Petah Tikva is using DNA analysis of dog droppings to reward and punish pet owners.

Under a six-month trial program launched this week, the Tel Aviv suburb is asking dog owners to take their animal to a municipal veterinarian, who then swabs its mouth and collects DNA.

The city will use the DNA database it is building to match feces to a registered dog and identify its owner.

Owners who scoop up their dogs’ droppings and place them in specially marked bins on Petah Tikva’s streets will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys.

But droppings found underfoot in the street and matched through the DNA database to a registered pet could earn its owner a municipal fine.

“My goal is to get the residents involved, and tell them that together, we can make our environment clean,” said Tika Bar-On, the city’s chief veterinarian who came up with the idea for the DNA experiment.

Bar-On said the DNA database could also help veterinarians research genetic diseases in dogs, investigate canine pedigree and identify stray animals, replacing the need for electronic chip identification.

“The sky is the limit on how far we can take this,” she said.

So far, Bar-On said, residents have “reacted positively to the program and are cooperating because they want their neighbourhood to be clean”.

She said Petah Tikva would consider making it mandatory for pet owners to provide DNA samples from their dogs if the trial program is successful.

Update: Kind of on topic.