Rosner's Domain: Factor vs. MESH: the return of Dennis Ross?

Project MESH - Middle East Strategy at Harvard - has "conducted a poll of MESHNet members, asking them who would make the best Middle East envoy of the Obama administration".

It is an interesting survey - based on our Israel Factor poll of the same nature a few weeks ago. The question is the same question, and the list of possible candidates for the job is also identical (of course, both Richardson and Clinton are now out of the picture). Two things are different: the panelists answering the question, and the outcome. That's really the most interesting part of it. And we should ask the obvious question: why do the Israel Factor wants Richardson, while MESH experts believe in Ross?

But first things first: here's our survey, and MESH's, side by side:

So - where's the difference? MESH experts want Ross first. His numbers are much higher than those of the other candidates. Clinton and Holbrook come second and close third. Our panel (the Israel Factor) didn't really like the idea of Ross, and ranked Richardson higher than all others. Both panels agree than Baker will not be the right choice, and both rank Rice pretty low. However, Kurtzer gets a fairly high mark from MESH, while Factor experts rank him second to last.

Why?

The real answer is that I don't know. But here's what we do know: the Factor experts are Israelis, MESH's are mostly Americans. The Factor experts were all picked because they know something about US-Israel relations, while the MESH group seems more eclectic in nature.

Thus - one notable difference makes sense: The MESH list has more professionals on the top (4 out of the first 5: Ross, Holbrooke, Powel, Kurtzer), while the Factor believes in politicians (3 out of the first 4: Richardson and the two Clintons). Maybe it's because Israelis tend to believe that an American politician will be more attentive to Israel's claims (students of US-Israel history know that this was often the pattern).

Anyway, as this is no more than a game, I've decided to do one more thing with it, and check what a list compiled by all these experts would look like. So, here it is: the combined MESH-Factor list (namely, the average of both lists):