A majority of Jewish Israelis believe that the state should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate, according to a survey conducted by the Dahaf Institute on behalf of Madar, the Palestinian Center for Israel Studies.
The survey, conducted in mid-March among a representative sample of 501 Jewish Israelis, found that 42 percent agreed that the state should encourage Israeli Arabs to emigrate, while another 17 percent said they tended to agree with this. This compares to 40 percent who disagreed or tended to disagree.
Dr. Assad Ghanem, the head of Madar's research department, said yesterday that the results did not surprise him, as other surveys have produced similar findings. "In the 1990s, the positions of Israeli Jews were less extreme, but positions have changed since the intifada began," he explained.
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The survey also found that only 34 percent of Jewish Israelis support a peace deal that entails a full withdrawal to the 1967 borders, while 65 percent oppose it. Though surveys have consistently shown that 60 percent of Israelis support establishment of a Palestinian state, most pollsters do not specify its borders when asking this question.
"Only a minority of Israelis are willing to accept the state that the Palestinians are talking about, and this fact was only revealed because we formulated the survey questions from our own standpoint rather than from the standpoint of Jewish Israeli pollsters," said Ghanem.
According to him, Madar, a new institute based in Ramallah, is the first Palestinian institute to employ Hebrew-speaking Arabs and publish studies by Israeli researchers. The institute has been criticized for this, but Ghanem rejects such comments, saying: "We have to understand Israel in reality, not in slogans, whether for the purpose of peace or the purpose of war.
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