A large majority of Israelis oppose a unilateral military attack on Iran over its nuclear program, according to a recent poll conducted by the Brookings Institute. A scant 20 percent of Israelis would approve of striking Iran without American support, and when the question is asked without the American qualifier, a majority of all Israelis and a plurality of Israeli Jews still oppose bombing Iran. What’s more, 46 percent of Israelis would support Iran’s production of “low level nuclear fuel that could only be used for producing electricity” — a circumstance some say could be an outcome of a negotiated deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

The poll results also show that just 23 percent of Israelis conclude that a hit on Iran’s nuclear facilities would set back Iran’s nuclear program by more than five years. A small percentage of Israelis, 24 percent, think America will join an attack on Iran if Israel has already done so. And not surprisingly, 88 percent of Israelis believe that it is very or somewhat likely that Iran “will eventually develop nuclear weapons.” Overall, 58 percent of Israeli citizens either strongly or somewhat support a nuclear-free Middle East.

The result on what Israelis think of war with Iran is in line with many other polls taken on the subject. Indeed, many former high-level Israeli officials have come out against a unilateral attack on Iran, echoing the Obama administration’s preference for a diplomatic solution. They have argued that an attack would only delay, not end, Iran’s nuclear program, could hasten Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon and also inspire support from the Iranian people toward the Iranian government. Other high profile former Israeli officials support direct discussions between the U.S. and Iran.

International Atomic Energy Agency director Yukiya Amano said earlier this week that a diplomatic solution on the Iran issue must be pursued “with a sense of urgency,” a position that the Obama administration appears to agree with. The White House, while stressing the threat an Iran with a nuclear weapon poses, has favors diplomacy to solve the stand-off while keeping all options on the table to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. The fact that U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies believe Iran has not yet made a firm decision to build a nuclear weapon has allowed the administration to point out that there is time to allow a diplomatic approach to succeed.

Despite constant noise from the right wing in this country that President Obama is not sufficiently pro-Israel, the same Brookings poll also found that Israelis themselves appear to think otherwise. The survey found that 60 percent of Israelis have a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of the president, which is actually somewhat higher than the percentage of Americans that feel the same way.

Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera criticized a claim made by Republicans that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is partly responsible for the attacks that killed four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11 this year because of her experience with the terror bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania 14 years ago.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) lobbed the criticism on Wednesday saying that the Benghazi attack “echoes the attacks on those embassies in 1998,” and that Rice “was head of the African region for our State Department. In both cases the ambassadors begged for additional security.”

But Rivera, who said he covered the attack in Kenya at the time, said that assessment is off the mark:

RIVERA: I think though to blame Susan Rice is kind of like blaming FEMA for 9/11. There is an undersecretary of state who is in charge of facilities and that is the group that deemed the terrorist threat there to be medium: it really wasn’t Susan Rice. It’s like scapegoating Susan is the affliction that’s sweeping Washington right now.

Watch Geraldo’s remarks here:

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) joined in the new attack shortly after Collins’ statement, telling MSNBC that Rice needed to answer “questions” about her role in protecting the embassies. But two officials from a board that Huffington Post says investigated the 1998 terrorist bombings said that Rice had nothing to do with embassy security at the time. One official said, “I don’t remember any inference or allegation that Susan Rice had been negligent.” Yesterday, Mother Jones tracked down the State Department Accountability Review Board’s reports of both bombings and came to a similar conclusion:

“The reports noted numerous security failures and oversights that preceded the bombings. But they don’t back up Collins’ characterization. Neither mentions Rice, who was a policy person who would not be in charge of embassy or security operations. The report on the Tanzania attack says nothing about the US ambassador there begging for additional security. It notes that “the security systems and security procedures” at the embassy “were in accord with, and in some ways exceeded, Department of State standards for overseas posts assessed as having a ‘low’ threat rating for political violence and terrorism.”

Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have been trying to deligitimize Rice in anticipation of her Secretary of State nomination and the attempt to link the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings to Benghazi and Rice is just the latest baseless salvo.

Collins said she asked about the 1998 embassy bombings in her meeting with Rice this week but was disappointed that Rice said “she wasn’t expecting a question on that and that she would have to refresh her memory and go back and think about it.” Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable that Rice wasn’t prepared for the question, as the topic has nothing to do with her role in disseminating the intelligence community’s talking points on Benghazi.