Polls: Stong majority of Iranians are against Israel

From Terror Free Tomorrow's recent poll on Iran (Full report in PDF):

63 percent of Iranians oppose any peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel and favor all Muslims continuing to fight until there is no State of Israel in the Middle East.

Only less than a quarter of Iranians favor a peace treaty recognizing the State of Israel, even if an independent Palestinian state is established.

Likewise, more than 60 percent support the government of Iran providing military and financial assistance to Palestinian opposition groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

45 percent of Iranians would, however, favor recognizing the State of Israel as part of a deal with the U.S., though this is down from the 55 percent we found in June.

59 percent of Iranians also support the government of Iran providing military and financial assistance to Iraqi Shiite militias (33 percent oppose), while 61 percent back such assistance to Hezbollah in Lebanon (32 percent oppose).

From World Public Opinion's 2007 poll on Iran: (Full report in PDF)

A large majority of Iranians have a negative view of Israel’s influence in the world, while nearly half of Americans concur. Iranians and Americans have largely opposing views about the influence of a number of countries and actors in the Middle East, with Iranians having mostly positive views and Americans having chiefly negative ones.

Asked about the influence of Syria in the world, a majority of Iranians (61%) said it had a “mainly positive” influence, while a majority of Americans (71%) said “mainly negative.” Similarly, a large majority of Iranians (73%) said the Palestinians’ influence in the world was positive, while the exact same majority of Americans (73%) said it was mainly negative.

These divergent views extend to non-state actors in the Middle East. A majority of Iranians (56%) said the influence of Hamas was mainly positive, while 77 percent of Americans said its influence in the world was mainly negative.

The contrast in views of Hezbollah, a Shiite organization, is even more striking: 75 percent of Iranians thought HEzbollah's influence in the world was mainly positive, while 80 percent of Americans believed it was mainly negative.

Iranians also had a positive opinion of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. A large majority of Iranians (81%) had a favorable view of Nasrallah, inclusing 59 percent very favorable.

The pattern of diametrically opposed Iranian and American evaluations of Middle Eastern actors is broken in the case of Israel. While an overwhelming majority of Iranians (83%) said they believed Israel had a mainly negative influence in the world, a plurality of Americans (48%) shared that view. Forty-four percent of Americans said Israel had a mainly positive influence.