Monday, March 18, 2024 -
Print Edition

Latest peace(?) poll

Peace_DoveA news item from the ‘Short Takes’ page of our print edition:

A survey of 1,184 Israelis and 1,270 Palestinians conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found little consensus on the parameters of peace and mistrust and fear of the other on both sides.

Some 59% of Israelis and 51% of Palestinians support a two-state solution. However, 1 in 5 Israeli Jews and 1 in 3 Palestinians wants a one-state solution, meaning a single state for both Israelis and Palestinians.

The peace deal presented to those polled presented a two-state solution proving for:

  • A demilitarized Palestinian state
  • Reciprocal national recognition
  • Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders with territorial swaps
  • The reunification of 100,000 Palestinians with families in Israel
  • The division of Jerusalem and its holy sites
  • A multinational force in the new Palestinian state
  • Israel maintaining two early warning stations in the West Bank for 15 years.

Also included, but in our view just a tad naïve, the end of conflict and claims.

This seems like an excellent deal (albeit theoretical and likely difficult to near impossible to implement), but 55% of Israeli Jews and 59% of Palestinians opposed it! (Israeli Arabs, clearly an outlier, supported the deal at a rate of 90%).

What does this say about the prospect for peace — from either side? Is it that neither side is serious about peace? Or, for them, are such proposals the equivalent of kicking back with your latest fairy tale?

(The only good news, if it can even be classified as such, is that 26% of those 55% Israeli Jews would change their minds if the Arab states agreed to the Arab Peace Initiative, and 25% of those Palestinians would do the same if the state of Israel accepted the initiative. But this raises another question: Are these “open-minded” folks serious, or do they never see the aforementioned chicken-and-egg change ever happening, so why not answer positively?)




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