Peace Index / The economy can wait
By Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann, 10/3/06

The general lack of clarity about Hamas' path is reflected in contradictory trends in the Jewish public's positions on relations with the Palestinians. On the one hand, there has been a decline compared to last month in the rate of those who think Hamas will moderate its involvement in terror attacks against Israel. On the other, there has been a slight rise in the rate of those who say Israel should transfer to the Palestinian Authority money it collected for it in taxes, though the majority still opposes this transfer.

A majority also believes Israel should not oppose contributions by foreign actors to Palestinian civic organizations for humanitarian purposes. As for the policy Israel should now take, the highest proportion, though still less than half, thinks Israel should decide unilaterally on its borders and not hold contacts with the Hamas-led Palestinian government. Slightly over a third favor keeping a door open to Hamas in the hope it will change its positions, with the rest having no clear opinion on the issue.

As for the Israeli elections, there was a further increase in the rate of those who think security considerations will determine the voters' decisions, unlike the prevailing view in November that this time it would be socioeconomic issues. A large majority thinks that no matter what government is formed, the foreign and defense policy will be similar. The public tends, however, to identify more with Kadima's platform in this regard and after it, in descending order, with Likud and Labor. As for identification with the platforms in the socioeconomic sphere, here it is actually Labor that comes out on top followed, at a considerable distance, by Kadima and Likud. Also in this area, as in the political-security sphere, the public tends to expect the same sort of policy no matter what government is elected.

As in the past, the public currently prefers a broad coalition combining the left- and right-wing parties. The rest are divided almost equally between those favoring a right- and a left-wing coalition. As for the presence of the Arab sector in the coalition, the Jewish public is split on whether it is desirable or undesirable to have one or more Arab ministers in the government, but the majority prefers that there be no Arab parties in the coalition.

At the same time, an overwhelming majority of the Jewish public thinks that if, as the signs indicate, the Israeli Arabs' voting pattern changes, more of them voting for Jewish parties this time, it will be a positive change both for Israel's and the Arab public's interests. In the Arab public, however, a large majority says the Arab vote for Jewish parties will serve the state's interests but harm the interests of the Arab public itself.

Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey for February, which was carried out from Monday to Wednesday, February 27-March 1.

The rate of those in the Jewish public who think Hamas, after its victory in the elections for the Palestinian parliament, will moderate its involvement in terror attacks has now declined to 39 percent, compared to 46 percent last month (this month a majority of 54 percent did not expect it to moderate and the rest did not know).

Even though a clear majority of 69 percent still thinks, similar to the government's position, that Israel should not now transfer to the Palestinians the tax revenues it collected for them, there is a small rise - from 22 percent last month to 29 percent this month - in the rate of those who favor transferring the money even if Hamas heads the government.

Here, the gaps between the voters for the three large parties are pronounced - among those saying they will vote Labor, 53 percent favor transferring the funds, compared to 28 percent for Kadima and 12 percent for Likud. A cross-section between positions on Hamas moderating and on transferring the funds shows that a majority of those expecting a moderation also oppose the transfer, coming to 50 percent (vs. 44 percent). As expected, though, this majority is much larger among those who do not foresee a moderation - 77 percent (vs. 17 percent).

Despite the Jewish public's strong opposition to transferring the tax revenues to the PA that the Israeli government collected for it, on the question of whether Israel should or should not oppose contributions by various external actors to Palestinian civic organizations for humanitarian purposes, the majority (56.4 percent) think it should not oppose this (38 percent believe it should and the rest take no position). The Jewish public, in other words, makes a distinction between money intended for Palestinian governmental institutions and money intended for the needs of the Palestinian population.

As for the general policy to take toward a Hamas-headed government, we presented the interviewees with an assessment by certain experts that because of its ideology, Hamas will not be willing to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state but could decide on a hudna, that is, a unilateral cease-fire in its struggle against it, and we asked what Israel should do if this turns out to be correct. The highest proportion of the Jewish public - 47 percent - thought that, if so, Israel should decide unilaterally on the borders that are desirable for it, evacuating settlements accordingly, and should not hold contacts with a Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The minority, 36 percent, favored keeping a door open to Hamas in the hope that at some point it will recognize Israel, stop the terror attacks, and be prepared to negotiate. Among those saying they would vote Labor, a majority prefers keeping a door open, whereas among Kadima and Likud voters a majority supports unilateral steps.

As for the Israeli elections, if in November, with the election of Amir Peretz to lead the Labor Party, it appeared to an Israeli majority that this time the applecart might overturn and social and economic issues would decide the voting - 53 percent then thought so (vs. 35 percent who saw the security issue as central) - the opposite result in December (43 percent security, 37 percent socioeconomic) only intensified this month with 47 percent seeing security as paramount while 37 percent still expect socioeconomic issues to decide.

A segmentation by voting intentions reveals that, as expected, more of the Labor voters think the socioeconomic issue will be more important (58 percent), while among Kadima and Likud voters 36 percent and 31 percent think so, respectively.

In the security field, it turns out that the highest proportion of Jewish voters - 29 percent - identify most with Kadima, 24 percent with the Likud's platform in this area, and 15 percent with Labor (the rest identify with each to the same extent, with none of them, or do not know). However, in the socioeconomic sphere Labor leads with 34 percent, Kadima and Likud well behind at 20 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

What government would the majority want to see? As in the past, there is a clear preference for a government based on a broad coalition of right- and left-wing parties - 40 percent, with 24 percent favoring a coalition only with the left-wing parties and 21 percent only with the right-wing ones. However, no matter what government is eventually set up, Israel's foreign and defense policy toward the Palestinians is expected to be similar (60 percent vs. 32 percent) and a majority, albeit smaller, also expects no difference from a socioeconomic standpoint - 51 percent compared to 41 percent. In other words, the public apparently believes Israel's policy - especially on foreign and defense issues - will be determined mainly by various kinds of constraints rather than by party ideologies and platforms.

We checked to what extent the Jewish public is ready to have one or more Arab minister in the next government. It turns out the public is split on this question with 45 percent in favor and 43.5 percent against (in the Arab public a huge majority of 85 percent is in favor). However, only 36 percent would want Arab parties to be members of the coalition (50 percent oppose this and the rest have no opinion). Despite the highly problematic nature of this finding from a democratic standpoint, it does represent a certain improvement compared to the response to this question after the 2003 elections, when 68 percent opposed having Arab parties in the coalition and only 28 percent favored it.

Indexes:

General Oslo-40.0, Jews-35.0

General Negotiation-52.2, Jews-49.7

The Peace Index Project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University during February 27-March 1, 2006, and included 673 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.