A strong majority of Israelis believe Jewish settlement in the West Bank to be legal under Israeli law, a new poll shows.
The survey, conducted by New Wave Research on behalf of Regavim, found that 60 percent of Israelis view the settlements to be legal, while only 16 percent consider them to be illegal. 24% were unsure.
When respondents were asked about the legality of settlements under international law, the results differed substantially. A slight majority of 36% said they were legal and 35% said they believed them to be illegal. 29% said they didn’t know.
The poll also measured how the public’s attitude towards settlements and settlers would be impacted if views regarding the legality of settlement activity were to change.
If convinced of the legality of the settlements under international law, 34% of respondents said that their view towards the settlers would improve. 31% said that their opinion regarding building in the settlements would be more positive, and 31% said that it would cause them to reconsider whether Israel should dismantle most of the settlements as part of a final status agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
The poll was conducted with a sampling of 508 Hebrew speaking, Israeli Jews over 18 years of age, and has a margin of error of 4.4 percent.
Various Israeli activists told The Algemeiner that they see the results as relevant to the Israeli government’s decisions relating to the controversial Levy Report on the settlements, published in July 2012.
The Report was compiled by a three member committee headed by retired Supreme Court justice Edmund Levy, who was appointed by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to investigate the legal status of West Bank Jewish settlements.
Levy concluded that settlements are legal under international law, however, as of yet, the Report has not been brought before any parliamentary or governmental body which would have the power to approve it.
“When we understand the full implications of this poll, we recognize how important it is to educate the public here in Israel about the Levy Report,” Arlene Kushner, an activist who has coalesced an alliance of individuals and groups to promote the Levy Report, said. “Israelis have heard the international community declare the settlements to be part of an ‘illegal occupation’ or ‘illegitimate’ for so long that some have started believing it themselves. In fact, the negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs ignore Israel’s legal rights in Judea and Samaria.”
“The Levy Report, issued by a committee headed by a former High Court judge, concluded that under international law there is no Israeli occupation in Judea and Samaria. This poll shows that if Israelis are aware of these findings, a significant percentage of those who currently oppose the settlements would reconsider their attitude and would no longer support uprooting them,” Kushner said.
Jeff Daube, the Zionist Organization of America’s (ZOA) Israel Director, and a c0-chair of the alliance, told The Algemeiner that “The Report must be brought back onto the agenda so that its conclusions and recommendations can be discussed and implemented.”
“Acknowledging Israel’s legal claim to Judea and Samaria can only strengthen its position both domestically and in the international community,” he said.
Others that have joined the alliance include, Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights, National Council of Young Israel , the ZOA, Dr. Jacques Gauthier, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Ambassador Zvi Mazel and Dr. Abraham Sion.
On Tuesday, Knesset Member David Rotem, announced that the Report will be debated by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee next week, The Jerusalem Post reported.
@dweller: Not only the wording and order, but also those whom they target for their questions. I don’t put much faith in polls because of that.
@ yamit82:
Pollsters obviously worded & ordered their questions in such a way as to elicit the responses they were seeking.
All this REALLY means is that the people are NOT informed.
If the fact that Buddhists USE it makes it a “Buddhist quote,” then I guess it’s a Buddhist quote. But it’s actually one of those sayings that have existed for so long and in so many formulations that it’s rightly designated “public domain.”
It was certainly around LONG before Gautama Buddha. He probably got it from the Hindus
— and it was around long before them too. And not just in the East.
Hermes Trismegistus, e.g., was said to have lived in Avraham’s day (ca 2100 — 1900 BC).
“When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh lips to fill them with Wisdom.” — The Kybalion.
That’s why I said:
“If you knew the things he tried before [getting his mind blown apart by l’Affaire Dreyfus], it’d curl your hair…”
Not ‘forced’ on him, and he wasn’t against it either. He just didn’t, at first, think the idea was workable or the land hospitable. That’s why I ALSO noted,
“He came a long way in his journey to the Zionist proposition & enterprise.”
@ yamit82:
Show me the specific polls, Yamit, which actually use the above-bolded population as its exclusive sampling base.
Can’t say I’m surprised. However, I suggest that this is because they assume the law couldn’t possibly favor them; they’ve been subjected to the steady drumbeat of that stuff for so long, they simply take it for granted. The assumption ITSELF has long since become subliminal — so of course it’s off their radar screen.
When Goebbels made the observation that ‘the bigger the lie, the more easily it’ll be swallowed,’ even HE — in his wildest dreams — never ventured to suspect that the READIEST to believe the BS would include the very victims themselves. . . .
Balfour Declaration was neither legal nor “illegal.” It was an expression of intent, offered while the GreatWar was still raging — and I have never suggested that it constitutes the basis of Israel’s or the Jewish People’s legal rights in re Eretz.
Let them. Their case hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on, a legal pot to piss in, or a legal window to toss the contents of the legal pot out of.
In any case though, I am not suggesting that the Case for Israel needs to be presented to the “court of world opinion.”
— It was the court of Jewish opinion — and in this instance, specifically Israeli Jewish opinion — that I had reference to in my comments [above] to leonkushner & BuzzOrient.
Granted — but I don’t propose legal hasbara toward the Israeli Jewish populace for the purpose of addressing the “root cause of the conflict”
— rather, for the purpose of providing them the ironclad assurance they need to resist the urge to yield again & again purely for the sake of relief from the unrelenting pressure.
Peace isn’t going to BE made.
Not tomorrow, and not the day-after-tomorrow either.
— Not during our lifetimes; maybe not during this century. (Reality is what it is. Peace is a fine thing, but there are worse things than going without it.)
At best, an uneasy stasis will develop based on the enemy’s eventual realization that Israel is simply too strong for him and that every attempt on her only makes her stronger.
You betcha. Pali state would be a weapon in the hands of a seriously disturbed child.
Pali state must be kept absolutely out of the picture.
@Yamit82
“For a real Peace (undefined) Most Israelis would be willing to even cede Jerusalem. ”
Then do they truly consider themselves Jewish? Do they not say every year the psalm “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”? I would not be surprised. The last time I was in Israel, and invited to an ‘Orthodox’ home for Shabbat dinner, there were no bruchas, no kippahs. I’m surprised we didn’t eat lamb in its mother’s milk. I’m not Orthodox, but is that what they call Orthodox in Israel? Are only the Haradim Orthodox? There is a cult of ultra-Orthodox that denies Jews the right to Israel. What a mix there is there.
dweller Said:
For a real Peace (undefined) Most Israelis would be willing to even cede Jerusalem. (The Government must learn to Package ( euphemism for lies and deceit) their messages about peace benefits and the people will gladly follow.
Your variation of the Quote is: ” When the student is ready a Master [teacher] will come to teach” Buddhist quote.
Herzl’s original idea was Jewish voluntary mass conversion to christianity. The Jews didn’t like the idea. Then he latched onto and pushed for a Jewish state in British Kenya (Not Uganda). Jews rejected that idea as well. The idea of a Jewish state in Palestine was actually forced on him and he was never really hot for the idea.
Herzl’s story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1UL-YD_TTE
dweller Said:
No!!!!!!
A Pew Global Research poll, found that more than 70 percent of Egyptians, Jordanians and Palestinians believe that Palestinians’ “rights and needs” cannot be met unless Israel is eradicated.
The problem is not hasbara. A majority of Israelis who believe in the legality of settlements and our rights to Y&S would be in favor of giving them to the Arabs for full recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, end of conflict agreements and enforceable security guarantees that allow confidence that what happened in our withdrawal from Gaza does not repeat. Except for Blogs like this, nobody I know in Israel is overly concerned about legalities. Israelis want a real peace even at the expense of Land. That most believe it’s not possible at this time does not negate the hope or the willingness to cede land if they believed a real Peace could be made with the Arabs, which they don’t.
For most Israelis Legality is not only an issue it’s even not on anybodies radar here. It’s strictly an academic exercise for some and has no relevance for the Masses.
What is the Arab view?
The Palis have never viewed their conflict with Israel primarily as a border dispute.
“Balfour Declaration is an illegal promise made by someone who does not own to someone who does not deserve.”
The idea that Jewish settlements are “an obstacle to peace” is based on the morally repugnant premise – supported by the international community – that the very presence of Jews in these territories is an affront to the Palestinians, while Palestinians expect Israel to absorb not just the 1.6 million Arabs with Israeli citizenship but also an unknown number of Palestinian “refugees.”
Israel can make a legal case but then so can the Arabs. Since the root cause of our conflict is not based on legality but the refusal of the Arabs to accept Israel of any kind. Peace cannot begin to be made before the malignant characterization of Jewish statehood as a casus belli is recanted convincingly and comprehensively once and for all. It’s my contention that the real and only Root Cause of the conflict — namely, the continued existence of the Jewish nation-state of Israel — will remain extant even after the creation of a “Pali” state. In fact, the real Root Cause will actually be exacerbated by the creation of such an irredentist state, because such an entity, flush with a victory wrought by terror, will be sorely tempted to reverse History — with the assistance of its fellow Arab states and Iran — by destroying the State of Israel and annihilating its Jewish population.
@ Buzz of the Orient:
I’m afraid it is because successive GOI’s have failed to press their case in those terms — and the Israeli citizenry is insufficiently informed to insist on it.
— Hence, my subsequent comment [above], calling for a serious civic education effort aimed — first & foremost — at the people of Israel.
There’s a line from Gandhi [?] about how ‘If (an informed) people will lead, the leaders will follow.’
@ Buzz of the Orient:
It was indeed the incident that began the turnaround for Herzl. If you knew the things he tried before then, it’d curl your hair (unless it was already curly; THEN, it’d straighten it!).
— He came a long way in his journey to the Zionist proposition & enterprise.
@ Ted Belman:
My thanks to you both for the kind words.
further to my last comment. Zola exposed himself to a libel suit to establish the innocence of Dreyfus, but the cards were stacked against him, just as the cards were stacked against Dreyfus himself, and as the anti-Semitic cards are stacked against Israel. I see an interesting parallel here. As an aside, Theodore Hertzl became aware of the anti-Semitic nature of the whole “Dreyfus affaire” and it was most likely one of the reasons he was a proponent for Zionism.
By the way, Ted, it looks like you spend a lot of time practising simple math. LOL
@dweller: Thank you. That was a superb and comprehensive explanation concerning the legality of the settlements. Knowing, of course, that the rest of the world does not understand (or accept) the legality, and virtually everyone refers to the settlements as being illegal, why is your explanation not accepted? Unfortunately Israel cannot file a lawsuit for libel to settle that issue. Is Israel unwilling to have a court of distinction rule on the issue, or is there too much concern that bias and prejudice would prevail in such a case? A decision by an Israeli court would simply be ignored as being prejudiced, as the Levy decision would be.
I keep thinking back to Zola and the Dreyfus case: “Truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.”
@ dweller:
Excellent dissertation.
I am in the middle or writing an article which covers this subject. Should be published by Sunday.
@ leonkushner:
It would seem evident that an all-out hasbara effort is called for, and that the target of the campaign must be the Israeli public at-large; no?
@ Buzz of the Orient:
Illegitimate is actually NOT a synonym for illegal, so it cannot be a euphemism for it
— but you’re supposed to THINK it is.
That is, when you hear “illegitimate,” you’re supposed to think “illegal” — without the Admin having to commit itself to calling it that.
“Illegitimate” is a much more subjective & imprecise term than “illegal.”
To call something illegitimate comes down to simply declaring that it’s unacceptable — whereupon, of course, that prompts the question, “unacceptable to whose way of thinking?”
The present USA Administration studiously — and systematically — avoids using the term “illegal” to characterize the settlements.
You won’t find a single, solitary instance of it ever using the word in re those communities. (Guaranteed, or your money back.)
It never, never, NEVER uses the word in that context. There’s a reason for that.
The Anglo-American Convention on Palestine of 1924 — ratified by the US Senate, signed by the President — made USA effectively a signator to the Mandate, and the Mandate (like all other ratified US treaties) a part of USA domestic law.
The Mandate is no more; however, long-settled practice, known colloquially in international jurisprudence as the Acquired Rights Doctrine, and codified in law in 1969 as an integral part of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties [informally, “the Treaty on Treaties”], provides (inter alia) that articulated rights & duties within treaties, having themselves no statute of limitations, do NOT, as a matter of course, ‘expire’ with their original incorporating instruments [Art 70 (1)b].
And the Mandate made the settlements — anywhere from River to Sea — legal.
For POTUS or his agents to call the Jewish communities of the heartland provinces or eastern Jerusalem “illegal” would, one suspects, open the Fed. govt to legal action.
The “legitimacy” gambit is strictly a politically-motivated device, bearing no jurisprudential weight or significance of any sort, a ploy resorted to by those who begrudge Israel her patrimony.
“Legitimacy” is taken up only as a refuge, and that, frankly because a forthright claim of ‘illegality’ wouldn’t have a legal leg to stand on — any juridical rudiments of such an avowal having been long-ago demolished by a multitude of the world’s most accomplished & respected international judicial scholars, jurists and legal theorists — incl the 20th century’s foremost authority on Jus Gentium: the Law of Nations — the late Prof. Julius Stone (a real professor, unlike the overrated impostor in the Oval Ofice).
It is precisely for this reason that the present Administration’s then-UN ambassador, Susan E. Rice, was constrained, for example, to cast a veto — and the solitary “no” vote — against the 18 Feb 2011 Sec Council Resolution offered by the Lebanese representative, the text declaring that
— “Israeli settlements established in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, are illegal and constitute a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
To have failed to REJECT an avowal of such evident, plain & patent perversity in law would have meant opening a can of worms which the Obami knew only too well they could not close.
Had the word “illegitimate” been substituted for “illegal” — as they frantically (& unsuccessfully) URGED — they’d have gone for it in a heartbeat, and made the vote unanimous.
Illegal & illegitimate may share the same ROOT, but there’s a world of difference between them — and nobody knows that better than the present American Admin.
It’s no wonder that most of the world, including the West, has issues with Israel ‘occupying’ the West Bank and denouncing places that Israelis live there as ‘illegal settlements’.
After all, if only 60% of Israeli’s think they are legal and if Israel’s own government have been deciding on how to hand back the region to the ‘Palestinians’ since the Israeli’s first conquered them in a defensive war against Jordan, why in the world would should non-Israeli’s think otherwise? So pathetic!
Has any respectable court of justice actually determined wtih a recorded judgment that the settlements are illegal? It seems to me to be nothing more than biased opinion – an almost universal one. Is it not evicence that a lie told loud enough and often enough will become considered to be truth? The USA uses the term “illegitimate”, but isn’t that just a euphamism for “illegal”?