Peace Index / Mood of skepticism shrouds Israeli public's opinions

Even before the devastating terror attack in Haifa, an overwhelming majority of the Israeli Jewish public supported the Israeli government's policy of targeted assassinations, with the minority that opposes this policy doing so mainly due to pragmatic considerations - namely, that the assassinations strengthen the Palestinians' desire for vengeance - and not for moral reasons.

On the political level, it appears that the Jewish public does not see great hope for advancing the peace process after a new Palestinian government is established under Ahmed Qureia. The widespread view is that what has been is what will be. Among those who think the establishment of this government will bring a change, the rate of those who believe the chances of peace will decrease compared to the Mahmoud Abbas period is double the rate of those who believe these chances will increase.

In this mood of skepticism, most of the Jewish public endorses the government's position that there should be no negotiations with the Palestinians as long as terror attacks continue, though the majority supports such negotiations in principle.

On the issue of refusal to serve that recently caught the public's attention, the survey shows that a large majority opposes the right of protest of the pilots who announced in a statement published in the press that for moral reasons they "refuse to take part in air force attacks on civilian population centers." The majority also believes the pilots' stance stems mainly from their political opinions, and not from moral considerations. At the same time, a large majority opposes refusal by soldiers to take part in the dismantling of settlements should the government decide on this measure.

After three years of the intifada, it appears that a majority of the Jewish public, though it is not large and is smaller than the majority we found in a previous measurement after the first year of the intifada, believes Israeli society is coping well with the ongoing violence. As for the resilience of the Israeli and Palestinian societies should the violence continue, a large majority believes more in Israeli society's fortitude than in that of Palestinian society, although an erosion has also occurred in this belief compared to the first years of the intifada.

As for the Jewish public's self-identification on the political spectrum regarding issues of peace and security, the majority locate themselves from the center rightward. Furthermore, whereas the stances of those who identify as right and center on these issues tend to be relatively uniform, the left tends to be more divided on most of the issues.

Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey that was conducted from Tuesday to Thursday, September 30-October 2.

As noted, even before the attack in Haifa a large majority (75 percent) of the interviewees said they strongly (49 percent) or moderately supported (26 percent) the policy of targeted assassinations, whereas only 19 percent expressed opposition. The opponents were asked to specify which of the following two reasons underlie their opposition: that assassinations are immoral, since they involve execution without trial and may cause harm to civilians; or that targeted assassinations only strengthen the Palestinians' desire for revenge and each assassination creates a chain reaction of violence and increases the number of Israeli victims. The findings show that the prevalent reason for their opposition (48 percent) is the pragmatic one, whereas 15 percent chose the moral factor and 20 percent ascribed their opposition to both reasons. The remaining 17 percent did not know or said their opposition stems from other factors.

Breaking down answers to this question by the interviewees' self-definition on the political spectrum on peace and security issues reveals considerable disparities between the center and right on the one hand and the left on the other (though on the left, too, there is no sweeping opposition to this policy). On the right, 88 percent support it; in the center, 79 percent; on the left, 44 percent (with 50.5 percent opposing it). Interestingly, among the opponents on the left, the 51 percent majority explain their position on the pragmatic basis of the violent chain reaction, and only 19 percent ascribe their opposition to a moral basis. Thirty percent of them oppose assassinations for both reasons together.

As for developments on the political level, we examined the public's view of the chances for advancing the peace process with the establishment of the new Palestinian government headed by Ahmed Qureia, compared to the chances for advancing the process in the period of the previous government headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The prevalent view among the Jewish public (48 percent) is that the chances for advancing the peace process with the new government are no different than in under Abbas. Indeed, 29 percent think the chances for advancing the peace process under Qureia are lower than under Abbas, and only 14 percent think these chances will improve with the establishment of the new government (9 percent lack a clear opinion on the matter).

In keeping with these pessimistic assessments, Qureia's image on a scale from one (terrorist) to five (statesman) is more negative among the Jewish public compared to Abbas, though not to the same extent as Arafat's: the average score for Abbas is 3.1, Qureia's is 2.4, and Arafat's is 1.2. Although there are considerable gaps between the right and the left in assessments of Abbas and Qureia, with the left tending to see both of them more as statesmen whereas the right locates them closer to the terrorist pole, regarding Arafat the overwhelming majority of the left as well (75 percent) views him as a terrorist.

It appears that the suspicion toward the new Palestinian government and the continuing terror attacks are what underlies the public's clear support (59 percent) for the government's policy of not conducting negotiations with the Palestinians as long as terror continues. About a third, however, believe there is no chance that the terror will stop if there is no progress on the political track, and hence one should not wait for a cessation of the terror to renew negotiations. The disparities in opinions on this issue between the right and center and the left are clearly polarized: 77 percent (vs. 14 percent) of the right and 59 percent (vs. 35 percent) of the center think negotiations should not be conducted "under fire," while only 14 percent of the left supports this policy compared to 83 percent who believe there is no chance of ending terror without returning to negotiations.

These positions are related to a large extent to most of the Jewish public's current rightward self-identification on issues of peace and security. Some 49 percent defined themselves as on the right - among them, 23 percent as right and 26 percent as moderate right; 20 percent put themselves in the center; and 19 percent defined themselves as left - 11 percent as moderate left and 8 percent as left (12 percent did not identify themselves one way or another). In terms of views, it emerges from the data that the center is much closer to the right than to the left.

On the background of the public debate that arose about the pilots' letter of refusal, we examined the public's views toward this act along with other issues of refusal and political protest. Regarding the act of the pilots, we found that an overwhelming majority of 75 percent opposes it, of whom 62 percent oppose it strongly and 13 percent moderately. Twenty percent expressed support for the step the pilots took, while 5 percent did not know. On this issue, too, there is great similarity between the right and the center - 89 percent of the right and 80 percent of the center oppose the pilots' protest. In comparison, unlike on the issue of returning to negotiations, here the left is not united but, instead, divided evenly: 46 percent oppose, while 48 percent support.

In responses to the question of whether the pilots who signed the statement did so, as they asserted, mainly for moral reasons or for reasons related to their political positions, it emerged that 51 percent think the refusal is based on political views, 21 percent believe the main motive is moral, and 10 percent see the two reasons together as motivating this act (14 percent did not have a clear view on this matter or attributed the pilots' act to other factors).

To determine whether this segmentation of opinion has to do with its political coloration or with opposition to protest by soldiers without connection to its motives, we asked: "If the government decided to dismantle the Jewish settlements in the territories in the context of the peace process and there was an organization of soldiers who declared their refusal to take part in this, would you support or oppose this refusal?" The findings indicate that the public's views against the pilots' protest stem mostly from a basic opposition to refusal by those in uniform and less from the specific content. Thus, 65 percent of the respondents oppose refusal by soldiers to dismantle settlements (of them, 46 percent strongly oppose this and 19 percent moderately oppose it), compared to 25 percent who support refusal to dismantle settlements (10 percent did not have a clear position).

In contrast to the pilots' protest, on the issue of refusing to dismantle settlements there was a clear majority of opponents in all three camps: on the right, 62 percent; in the center, 78 percent; on the left, 74 percent. A comparison between the opposition to the pilots' refusal and to the possibility of soldiers' refusal to dismantle settlements shows that the right and center are more consistent than the left in their opposition to the two kinds of refusal. As noted, the left's rate of opposition to the pilots' protest is only 46 percent, compared to three-quarters who oppose refusal in the case of dismantling settlements. One should not, however, ignore the fact that the right's position is ideologically influenced as well, since its opposition to refusal in the case of dismantling settlements (62 percent) is lower than in the case of the pilots' refusal (89 percent).

As for the right of civilian protest against the government's policy toward the peace process, here, too, a consensus believes citizens who think the government's policy harms Israel's national interest have a right to protest - but only in the framework of the law, for example, by organizing petitions or demonstrating. At the same time, in the case of civilian protest as well there is a strong consensus against illegal protest, even if nonviolent. The consensus against violent protest, such as a violent civil revolt, is all the stronger.

After three years since the outbreak of the second intifada, we again examined how the public assesses the resilience of Israeli society in the face of the ongoing violence. We found that as in the past, the majority assesses Israeli society's coping with the situation as good or very good (53 percent) compared to 42 percent who believe Israeli society is coping poorly or very poorly (5 percent do not know). Compared, however, to a previous measurement conducted at the end of the first year of the intifada, there is an erosion in the public's assessment of Israeli society's resilience. At that time we found that about 60 percent thought it was coping well or very well, and 40 percent thought it was coping poorly or very poorly.

A similar trend emerges in the assessment of Israeli society's resilience compared to that of Palestinian society. Today, 60 percent believe that Israeli society is coping better with the situation, whereas 19 percent see Palestinian society as proving more resilient. In August 2001, however, 67 percent said the Israeli side was coping better with the ongoing violence and only 10 percent claimed the Palestinian side was showing greater resilience. Nevertheless, a clear majority still believes in Israeli society's resilience. We should note that on the issue of resilience the right and center tend to be more optimistic than the left: while on the right and center 56 percent believe Israeli society is coping well and 40 percent say that it is not, the left is divided in half.

The peace indexes for this month were: Oslo Index: total sample, 33.5, Jewish sample, 29.8; Negotiation Index: total sample, 49.4, Jewish sample, 47.7.

The Peace Index project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research of Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Dr. Tamar Hermann and with the assistance of the Ford Foundation, United States. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B.I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University from September 30 to October 2, and included 582 interviewees who represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size is about 4.5 percent in each direction.