Overall support tilts in favor of pullout if peace achieved; over 40% want only Jews to vote on withdrawal referendum
If a referendum were held today on an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank excluding major settlement blocs, a majority of Jews, 52 percent, would vote against such a withdrawal, according to a major poll of Israeli public opinion.
Just over one-third of Israeli Jews, or 36%, would support a withdrawal “in principle,” according to the June 2016 Peace Index, a monthly study of Israelis’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, among other issues.
The figures are reversed among Arab Israelis, with fully 69% saying they would support a withdrawal “today,” and 24% opposing it.
Across the entire Israeli population, opposition to a withdrawal in the current situation enjoys a plurality of 48% to 41%.
But given a peace agreement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, the answers shift in favor of withdrawal. Jewish views tilt toward near parity, with 46% opposed to withdrawal and 43% in favor. Among Arabs, support for withdrawal reaches over 76%.
Though the Jewish vote tilts slightly against withdrawal in the case of a peace agreement, Israel’s population overall would favor (49% to 41%) a withdrawal if it were conducted in the context of a peace agreement.
A significant minority of Jews (44%) believe that only Jewish citizens of the state should be allowed to vote in a referendum on withdrawal. A majority, 51%, believe all Israelis should vote.
Meanwhile, fully 65% of Arabs say they are “sure” a referendum is desirable if there is progress in peace talks, three times as many as the 22% of Jews who say they are “sure.”
Majorities on both sides are either “sure” or “think” a referendum is desirable, with 59% of Jews and 73% of Arabs preferring a referendum “if, in the future, there were to be progress in talks with the Palestinians leading to a draft peace agreement that would be acceptable to the Israeli government,” according to the study’s authors, Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann, professors at Tel Aviv University who run the peace index project for the Israel Democracy Institute.
The study found that Arabs and Jews have very different hopes but similar expectations on the question of the future of the West Bank.
Asked what their preferred outcome would be — with the option of a peace settlement excluded from the question — Arabs and Jews offered sharply differing answers, with one-third of Arabs supporting international intervention to push Israel out of the West Bank and one-third of Jews favoring a West Bank annexation without granting equal rights to Palestinians living there.
The situation should remain as it is: 23% of Jews, 33% of Arabs
The international community should force Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines: Jews 12%, Arabs 34%
Israel should annex the West Bank and give equal rights to Palestinians living there: Jews 19%, Arabs 26%
Israel should annex the West Bank but not give equal rights to Palestinians living there: Jews 32%, Arabs 3%
Those preferences — as long as peace isn’t on the table — aren’t necessarily what Israeli think will happen. Asked to predict what they expect for the future, Jews and Arabs give similar answers, with a large plurality of both saying the situation will remain as it is.
The situation will remain as it is: 38% of Jews, 45% of Arabs
The international community will force Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines: Jews 20%, Arabs 23%
Israel will annex the West Bank and give equal rights to Palestinians living there: Jews 9%, Arabs 9%
Israel will annex the West Bank but not give equal rights to Palestinians living there: Jews 20%, Arabs 15%
The study also found that Arab Israelis are far more likely to visit in the West Bank than Jews.
Four percent of Israeli Jews say they are settlers in a West Bank settlement, with another 14% saying they have family members there. Yet over 52% of Jews said they have not visited or traveled in the West Bank in the past five years. Just 14% say they travel there regularly. Among Arab Israelis, fully 34% say they travel often to the West Bank.
The survey was conducted June 28-29 by phone by the Midgam Research Institute. It queried 500 Jews and 100 Arabs “who constitute a representative national sample of the entire adult population of Israel aged 18 and over,” according to a press release. It carries a margin of error of ±4.1% at a confidence level of 95%.
Need a referendum of people living in Area C. Do you want to have Israeli civilian law applied and have the territory become formally within the borders of the State of Israel.