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Poll: most Israelis still support Palestinian state |
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by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
06 Aug 2002
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Latest poll on Israeli attitudes toward Palestinian issues.
Relevant quote: majority of 61% of the overall Jewish public supports, or strongly supports, the establishment of a Palestinian state "within the context of a lasting peace agreement, including the Palestinian waiver of the refugees' right of return to locations inside Israel's borders." |
Majority in favor of left's stand on peace, targeted liquidations
By Prof. Ephraim Ya'ar and Dr. Tamar Hermann
While most of the Jewish public in Israel now tends to describe itself as rightist in its world view on foreign and security affairs, the fact is that, to a considerable extent, the majority supports the left's stand regarding conditions for peace with the Palestinians, including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, the evacuation of settlements in the territories - except for the large blocs - and a return to the 1967 borders, with border modifications aimed at keeping these blocs within Israeli territory.
As for the Temple Mount, a clear majority supports the idea that sovereignty should not go to either state, and that the mosque compound be administered by Palestinians while the Western Wall compound be administered by Israel.
Where the struggle against Palestinian terror is concerned, the poll indicates the Jewish public's widespread support for the policy of targeted liquidations, also in cases where it may be reasonably assumed that Palestinian civilians will be affected, as was the case in the liquidation of Hamas military wing leader Salah Shehadeh. At the same time, however, the majority would like to see the Israeli government take practical measures to ease the suffering of the Palestinian population in the territories. As for the impact of the location of terror attacks on the public's feelings, an overwhelming majority of respondents notes that where their personal feelings are concerned, it made no difference to them whether an attack on Jews was carried out inside the Green Line or beyond it.
These are the principal findings of the Peace Index for July 2002, conducted on July 29-31, 2002.
When asked, "How would you define your world view on foreign and security affairs?," about 50% responded that they considered themselves as rightists or moderate rightists, 26% as leftists or moderate leftists, 14.5% as centrists and 9.5% didn't know.
A cross-matching of such declarations with the reported voting in the elections for prime minister reveals that 75% of those who supported Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the 2001 elections consider themselves rightists, 12% centrists and 5% leftists. On the other hand, 16% who voted for former prime minister Ehud Barak today consider themselves rightists, 17% centrists and 64% leftists.
A segmentation of the self-declared rightists and leftists based on Knesset votes in the 1999 elections only serves to strengthen the finding that we have presented in the past, namely that Shas voters are the most rightist of the four largest parties: 89% are self-declared rightists, 6% centrists and no one claims to be a leftist. Of the Likud voters, 79% consider themselves rightists, 10% centrists and 4.5% leftists. Among Labor voters, 19.5% now consider themselves rightists, 15% centrists and 60% leftists, while 74% of Meretz voters now consider themselves leftists, 13% centrists and 17% rightists.
However, when we examined respondents' world views on the conditions of a possible agreement with the Palestinians, we found that the majority has retained what are considered "leftist" opinions. Therefore, a majority of 61% of the overall Jewish public supports, or strongly supports, the establishment of a Palestinian state "within the context of a lasting peace agreement, including the Palestinian waiver of the refugees' right of return to locations inside Israel's borders."
Thirty-five percent are opposed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on such terms, while the remainder have no clear position on the matter. Of those who consider themselves rightists, 50% support the establishment of a Palestinian state, as do 74% of the centrists and 81% of the self-declared leftists.
A division of responses to the question, "In the context of such an agreement, do you support, or oppose, the evacuation of the Jewish settlements in the territories, except for the large blocs such as the Etzion Bloc or Ma'ale Adumim?" indicates an even greater tendency toward what is generally identified as the left: 64% of the overall Jewish public support the evacuation of the settlements, and only 30% oppose it. An analysis of the answers to this question, according to respondents' self-declared rightist or leftist views is no less surprising: 52% of self-declared rightists support the evacuation, as do 75% centrists and 91.5% leftists.
There is, however, no clear majority in favor of an agreement that would include a return to the 1967 borders with border modifications to retain the large settlement blocs inside Israel. Only 47% are in favor and 43.5% are opposed. As anticipated, segmentation in accordance with self-declared rightist/leftist views on the subject is more polarized: only 35% of self-declared rightists support a return to these borders, as do 53% of the centrists and 76% of the leftists.
The findings on the issue of Jerusalem are most surprising, indicating that the gap between those for and against the handing over of the Arab quarters of east Jerusalem to Palestinian control and making it the Palestinian capital is now a relatively small 13%: 40% are in favor and 53% are opposed. Segmentation according to self-declared rightist or leftist views reveals that only 27% of rightists support this as do 49% of centrists and 62% of leftists. A majority of 53.5%, moreover, supports the idea that if the Palestinians waive the right of return to Israel as part of the peace agreement, then neither of the two states - Israel and Palestine - will be entitled to sovereignty over the Temple Mount, with the mosque compound to be administered by the Palestinians and the Western Wall by Israel. Forty percent are opposed to such an arrangement, and the remainder have no clear opinion on it. A segmentation of replies indicates that 44% of self-declared rightists support it, as do 57.5 centrists and 71% of the self-declared leftists.
As for Israel's policy vis-a-vis the Palestinian civilian population a majority of 59% feels that in light of the many reports on the difficult living conditions of this population in the territories, and concurrent with the war on terror, Israel must take practical measures to ease the suffering of this population (only 38% are opposed, while the remainder have no clear opinion on the issue.) A majority for this preference is found in all the political camps, albeit a smaller number on the right - 53% - compared with 59.5% in the center and 75% on the left.
But a reverse picture appears when the war on terror is concerned - there is considerable support, even among self-declared leftists, for an uncompromising policy usually identified with the right. As a result, we found a majority of 62% of the overall population who believe that despite the large number of innocent casualties involved in the targeted liquidation of Shehadeh, Israel should not abstain from similar liquidations in the future, even if the civilian population may be harmed (33% believe that no liquidations should be carried out under such circumstances, while only 4% believe that targeted liquidations should be avoided altogether.) A segmentation of replies according to self-declared leftists/rightist indicates that 71% of rightists support the liquidations, even when they could harm civilians, as do 61% of centrists and 43% of leftists.
These findings point to a drift to the right that has recently received considerable attention, and is reflected in this poll by the fact that the number of self-declared rightists is twice as large as that of self-declared leftists, mainly when it comes to security, but not necessarily on matters of policy.
Given the large number of recent attacks beyond the Green Line, we again explored the degree of public empathy for the settlers. As in the past, an overwhelming majority of 79% believe that no difference exists in their personal feelings toward terror attacks against Jews, regardless of whether they took place within or beyond the Green Line. Nineteen percent responded that they were more affected by an attack inside Israel, while 2% were more affected by an attack on a settlement. It is interesting to note that a clear majority of 63%, which contends that attacks inside Israel are no different from attacks beyond the Green Line, also exists among the self-declared leftists, although the figure is lower than that among centrists (81%) and rightists (86%) who share the same view. In other words, the widespread support for evacuating the settlements as the expression of a political stand has almost no impact on people's emotional solidarity with the settlers when they are the victims of terror.
The peace index project is conducted by the Tami Steinmetz Institute for Peace at Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Ya'ar and Dr. Tamar Hermann. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B.I. Cohen Institute of Public Opinion Research at Tel Aviv University on July 29-31, 2002 and comprised 579 respondents, representing the adult Jewish and Arab population of the country (including Judea, Samaria, the Gaza Strip and kibbutzim). The margin of sampling error is estimated at 4.5%.
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