Half think Harper too "pro-Israel"... NOT...

Here's an interesting poll. It's interesting not only because it says Canadians approve much more of Harper's stance than I would have thought, but also because the poll says almost the opposite of what the headline suggests it does.

When I read "Half think Harper too pro-Israel" I assumed that close to half of those polled felt that Harper's position in the latest crisis is too close to Israel. Or AT LEAST that a plurality thinks so.

Here's what the poll found in reality.

Harper's position is:

"decidedly too pro-Israel and is not appropriate" - 44%

"fair and balanced and completely appropriate" - 45%

Now, so far, you could argue that the headline "half think Harper too pro-Israel" isn't so bad, since there's only a 1 point difference between the two options, and one would assume that the missing 11% are the classic "undecideds". So there's some spin there, but not too much. Right?

Wrong.

The problem is, the other 11% weren't undecided.

The other 11% responded that Harper's position "doesn't support Israel strongly enough".

So there are three camps in this poll. 44% think Harper's position tilts too far towards Israel. 45% think Harper's position is balanced. 11% think Harper isn't being pro-Israel enough.

So, while the headline makes it seem that half of Canadians want Harper to have a more "anti-Israel" stance, this ignores the 45% of Canadians who think his stance is fine (more than those who think it's too pro-Israel), and the 11% of Canadians who want us to support Israel MORE. So 56% of Canadians think Harper's stance is either fine, or should move more towards Israel's side, and yet "Half" of Canadians think Harper's stand is "too pro-Israel".

An interesting example of headlines and statistics clashing.

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