August 2010: Peace Index |
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Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann; the Israeli peace index: 71% of Israelis think Israel should take Washington’s positions into account; 51% think FM Lieberman is damaging Israel’s status in the international community. Summary of the Findings
The whole world is against Israel56% of the Jewish public believes that “the whole world is against us.”
77% thinks it makes no difference what Israel does and how far it may go on the Palestinian issue; the world will continue to be very critical of it.
The positions of the Arab public are reversed: 75% (a large majority) disagrees with the maxim that the whole world is against Israel and 54% sees a connection between Israel’s actions and world criticism.
Should Israel take world opinion into account?The Jewish public is split almost evenly on this question:
51% think Israel should consider world opinion when making foreign policy decisions 48% think it should not.
The picture is quite different when it comes to the United States – a sweeping majority (71%) thinks Israel should take Washington’s positions into account.
In the Arab public, a huge majority (85%) thinks Israel should take world opinion into account when making foreign policy decisions and an even larger majority (89%) thinks Israel should be cognizant of U.S. opinion.
Israel’s current status in the international arenaA small majority of the Jewish public thinks Israel is moderately or completely isolated (54%), compared to 46% who say it is not isolated.
The picture in the Arab public is the reverse, but not dramatically so: 48% think Israel is isolated while 51% see it as not being isolated.
The government’s handling of Israel’s foreign relationsThe government received a failing grade for the handling of Israel’s foreign relations by the majority (62%) of the Jewish public. Only about a third (34%) see the government’s functioning in this realm as moderately or very satisfactory.
Surprisingly, the Arab public is more “positive”: 47% give the government a good or very good grade and a similar number assign it a bad or very bad one.
The functioning of Foreign Minister LiebermanOnly a minority (35.5%) of the Jews polled think Foreign Minister Lieberman is contributing to Israel’s status in the international community. The majority of Jewish respondents (51%) think he is moderately or greatly damaging it.
In the Arab public an overwhelming majority (81%) sees Lieberman as damaging Israel.
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Read the full details of the Peace Index poll at the Israel Democracy Institute. The survey was carried out by telephone on August 8-9 by the Dahaf Institute. The survey included 601 respondents, who constitute a representative sample of the adult population of Israel. The measurement error for a sample of this size is 4.5%. |
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