Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 68-70

Public Opinion

Moderation Not Dead

By Ella Bancroft

Poll results can be manipulated by the manner in which questions are posed, and often are affected temporarily by dramatic events, which are seldom lacking in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Nevertheless, polls show that the disheartening deterioration of the Middle East peace process since the election of Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel in May 1996 has not destroyed faith in that process among either Israelis or Palestinians. In fact, support for Netanyahu among Israeli voters has declined. And, although faith in the peace process is declining among Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, it has not yet resulted in a major turn toward Palestinian parties of the radical left or right. This is illustrated clearly in the poll trends from late 1997 presented below.

Barak Edges Netanyahu

A public opinion poll published in Israel Nov. 14 showed that if an election were held then, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would lose. The survey by the Dahaf Institute, a professional polling firm, for Israel's largest daily, Yediot Ahronot, found that 45 percent of respondents said they would vote for Labor Party leader Ehud Barak if elections were held that day, while only 33 percent said they would vote for Netanyahu. The rest said they would not vote or didn't know. The poll surveyed 533 Israelis and had a 4 percent margin of error.

The result reflected a slight comeback trend for Netanyahu from an all-time low reported in a June 1997 issue of Yediot Ahronot, when the voters' preferences were 29 percent for Netanyahu and 45 percent for Barak. Another survey in June 1997 reported in Ma'ariv newspaper in which only Jewish Israelis were questioned gave Netanyahu 33 percent and Barak 43 percent.

An Israeli poll completed only hours before the marketplace bombings in Jerusalem late last July showed that 60 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents supported establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state and more than half would give Palestinians sole or joint sovereignty over parts of East Jerusalem as part of a peace settlement. A similar majority supports withdrawal from most of the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace agreement with Syria and security guarantees from the United States.

Assassinations PC in Israel

Prominent Israeli leaders are in some peril of assassination by Jewish nationalist extremists, according to a poll conducted in early November by an Israeli organization, Shvakim Panorama, for Israel radio in an effort to assess the number of "political murderers in Israel today." Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the most likely victim of an assassination attempt, according to public responses, while Yossi Sarid, leader of the dovish, left-wing Meretz Party is the second most likely target.

What's unique is that both are threatened by the same population segment—Israeli right-wingers who said they would support killing political leaders who would trade land for peace. Other most likely targets in descending order were former Labor Party leader Shimon Peres, current Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak, and former Meretz Party leader Shulamit Aloni.

Poll organizers found three "circles" of Israelis who support, encourage, or would actually carry out murders of leaders who would return territories as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Extrapolating from the poll, organizers said the first circle encompasses more than 300,000 adults who justify and are willing to back an assassin; the second circle encompasses more than 180,000 adults who support harming a prime minister who might return land for peace and who also justify Yitzhak Rabin's murder; and 45,000 people who openly support political murder. Of the latter, the survey organizers said, up to 1,000 people might be willing to do the deed themselves.

Commenting on the survey, Sarid said he feels "a fraternity of the threatened" with Netanyahu, "but that's the only closeness I feel regarding him."

"Netanyahu now is reaping the whirlwind of the storm he sowed before becoming prime minister, for there is no doubt he was part of sowing that evil wind which ultimately led to Rabin's murder," Sarid said. "The threats are not new to me. I've been living like this for many years, but maybe now that he is being threatened, Netanyahu feels what Rabin did at the time."

"The hand which held the gun [that killed Rabin] may be tied today," Sarid continued, "but those who marked him as the target are still roaming free." Sarid pointed out that he and Netanyahu are threatened by the same "group of extreme right-wing nationalists. There is no threat on the prime minister from the left."

The same survey found that 62 percent of respondents said Netanyahu should apologize for his public conduct before Rabin's murder, while 38 percent think he shouldn't. A whopping 89.9 percent of respondents said they believe the goal of Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, was to stop the peace process. In fact, 47.8 percent believe he achieved that, while 52.2 percent think he did not.

Israel's Danger Is Internal

An Israeli poll published before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, in late October also exposed the fear of extremism in contemporary Israeli society. Fifty-eight percent of Israeli respondents believed the greatest dangers to the existence of the State of Israel are the differences of opinion and rifts within Israeli society itself.

U.S. Rabbis on Intermarriage

In the United States, intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles is one of the hottest topics among American Jewish leaders, who estimate that about half of American Jews take a non-Jewish partner in marriage. Rabbis have been quoted as saying that "assimilation," which often starts with an interfaith marriage and, far more frequently than not, ends with children of the marriage not being raised as Jews, is the greatest threat to Jewish continuity in the United States.

Nevertheless, a November survey by the Jewish Outreach Institute showed a surprisingly high level of acceptance of such intermarriage among rabbis of the four major Jewish disciplines in the U.S. Of 650 rabbis sent the questionnaire, 325 chose to answer the questions and return it.

More than half of Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis believe their synagogues have more to gain than lose by accommodating the needs of interfaith couples. Forty-three percent of respondents said they have become more accepting of interfaith couples. Thirty-six percent of rabbis said they would officiate at interfaith weddings. Although none of the Conservative or Orthodox rabbis who responded to the survey said they would officiate at interfaith ceremonies, 32 percent of Conservative rabbis and 11 percent of Orthodox rabbis said they would refer interfaith couples to other rabbis who do.

U.S. Jews and Peace Process

An autumn survey of American Jews by the Israel Policy Forum showed that 89 percent still support the Israeli-Palestinian Peace process, and that the same number want the U.S. to take an active role or, as worded in the survey, "to do whatever it can" to facilitate negotiations. This included putting pressure on both sides.

The survey results are exactly contrary to popular impressions about American Jews, particularly in Israel, where some 65 percent of Israelis still support the Oslo process despite the heavy-handed attempts by Binyamin Netanyahu to discredit it. In fact, many Israelis feel that it is the actions and political contributions of American Jewish hawks that are killing the Oslo agreement and inhibiting President Bill Clinton from putting pressure on the Israeli prime minister.

Equally surprising was the fact that 82 percent of the American Jewish respondents said they wanted, in addition to "security and a united Jerusalem," support by the U.S. for a Palestinian state.

U.S. Jews and Gender Gap

In his regular column in the Queens (NY) Jewish Week, J.J. Goldberg, author of Jewish Power, reported last September on a February 1997 survey by the American Jewish Committee that suggests American Jews, traditionally identified with the Democratic and even more liberal political parties, are becoming more conservative.

Jewish men responding to the survey split evenly between labeling themselves liberals (32 percent) and conservatives (31 percent) with the rest chosing "moderate." Jewish women, however, chose liberal (45 percent) over conservative (19 percent) by more than two to one. "Jews have moved to the right," Brandeis University sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman told Goldberg. "But it's only some Jews—the male ones."

Palestinians and Peace Process

Poll responses on the peace process from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza from Sept. 18 to 20 show a surprisingly close correlation with those from Israelis from the same general period reported above, although assessments of the causes of current problems differ.

Asked by the Center for Palestine Research and Studies of Nablus, Palestine, to assess Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation, 57 percent of Palestinian respondents supported it, and 36 percent opposed it.

Similar assessments of the Oslo accords were reported, with 59 percent supporting them and 34 percent opposing them.

A majority of 56 percent opposed the West Jerusalem suicide bomb attacks and 36 percent supported them. On the other hand, a majority of 56 percent supported the Palestinian National Authority's decision to boycott some Israeli products, and 39 percent opposed it.

Other results from the September poll by the Center for Palestine Research and Studies, which is supported by USAID money administered through the International Republican Institute in Washington, DC, follow:

* An overwhelming majority of 72 percent consider the Israeli government to be the party most responsible for deterioration of Israeli- Palestinian relations and the deadlock in the peace process.

* An even greater majority of 81 percent believed that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's fall visit to the Middle East demonstrated that U.S. policy is biased in Israel's favor, while 11 percent said it was balanced. (A full 97 percent of B.A. holders saw an American bias while 67 percent of illiterates saw the U.S. bias.)

* Those giving a positive evaluation of Palestinian democracy dropped to 34 percent (from 50 percent in April 1997).

* The percentage who believe that corruption exists in the institutions of the PNA rose to 65 percent (from 49 percent in September 1996).

* Positive evaluation of Yasser Arafat's presidency rose from 68 percent in June to 73 percent in September. Conversely, positive evaluation of the Palestinian Legislative Council dropped to 42 percent.

* Fateh, Yasser Arafat's party, retained the highest support at 37 percent, although this represented a decline from 41 percent support three months earlier. Support for the right-wing Hamas remained at 9 percent and for the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) at 3 percent.

* Strength of the non-affiliated remained at 35 percent, but a rise in independents increased their combined total to a record high of 47 percent of Palestinian respondents.

Palestinians and Suicide Bombings

An April 1997 poll conducted by the Jerusalem media and communications center supplied mixed views concerning suicide bombings by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Although at this point the data are relatively old, the results have been so distorted in the Western media that they are worth examining in the context of support for other kinds of Palestinian resistance to continued Israeli occupation.

Asked whether they supported or opposed suicide bombings, 54.5 percent opposed them, 32.7 percent supported them, and 12.8 percent gave no answer. Asked, however, if they supported or opposed "military operations in the West Bank and Gaza," opposition declined to 47.7 percent and support increased to 40 percent.

In a response that already is being put into action, when respondents were asked if they supported "Palestinian demonstrations and protests against Israel," which include rock-throwing, 62.7 percent of Palestinians backed these actions, and only 28.6 percent opposed them.