In all the polls where respondents have been asked to pin the blame on one party or the other for the most recent eruption of violence in Gaza, the blame-Hamas herd has outnumbered the few who find Israel at fault. See Pew, McClatchy/Ipsos and Rasmussen.

Indeed, in the latest McClatchy/Ipsos poll on the issue, not only did the above-mentioned blame-Hamas view prevail, but also most Americans (57%) endorsed the preposterous belief that Hamas has used excessive force in the conflict. In contrast, 36% consider Israel's actions excessive, with 44% seeing them as "appropriate."

I recommend that pollsters adopt the following course of action aimed at mitigating the fact that Americans often express their views about Gaza while being grossly misinformed about the issue.

1) Break down respondents by level of knowledge. What do people with the most knowledge about the Gaza situation think, as opposed to those who have little to no idea what the fighting is all about? This goal would be achieved as follows:

Include specific questions in the survey, such as, "Do you know how many people have died on each side?" "Do you know that the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking access to starving children and their dying parents for four straight days?"

Before addressing the appropriateness or excessiveness of each side, ask, "Did you know that Israel's attacks are in response to rockets launched by Hamas that resulted in very few casualties in a span of years?" Do you know that approximately 300 Palestinian children have been killed? Once the short questionnaire is completed, split respondents into two groups: the informed ones, and those who have no clue about these key details; or as an alternative, require that the ignorants visit the website www.gazabodycount.com with statistics on fatalities (1054 Palestinians vs. 13 Israelis as of today, most of the latter killed by friendly fire) prior to answering.

2) Ask respondents to list their main source of news (TV News, Talk Radio, Liberal Blogs, Newspapers, etc.) and take note of whom each subgroup blames, so we can have an idea as to who is telling what to the American people.

I strongly believe that if these steps are followed, a reader of this poll will no longer think "Americans blame Hamas" but rather "Misinformed Americans blame Hamas." This different approach would act as a deterrent to those who use poll numbers as a tool to legitimize popular-yet-unjustified abuses by Israel.

Here is why I strongly oppose the prosecution of Bernie Madoff:

We must instead make it more difficult for future potential criminals to defraud Americans. Let us move forward rather than backward.

Plus we need to fix the economy.

Stop the witch-hunt.