Peace Index

By Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann

[IMRA- 15 June: Prof. Tamar Hermann told IMRA that while support for disengagement may have declined since their survey that she doubts the validity of any poll indicating support has dropped below 50%.  Israeli Arab support for disengagement is tempered by concern that Prime Minister Sharon may in fact succeed in freezing the situation after completing the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.]

The public is inclined to prefer that the disengagement be implemented in coordination with the Palestinian side, and mostly also believes that if there is no progress in the political contacts, a third intifada is likely to erupt soon because of the continued occupation, the grave economic situation of the Palestinians, and the lack of a political horizon. The majority also thinks Israel should hold negotiations with the Authority even if Hamas wins the elections to the Palestinian parliament and becomes a senior partner in the PA leadership. The recently-begun trend of erosion in the size of the majority supporting the unilateral-disengagement plan among the Jewish public came to a halt last month; indeed, the gap between the supporters and opponents of the plan grew somewhat. However, the rates of support are still lower than those measured at the beginning of the year. As for the efforts of the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen, to dismantle the infrastructure of terror, the public is close to be evenly divided between those who think he is making sincere efforts to do so and those who do not  see his efforts as genuine. Regarding his efforts' degree of success, however, only a tiny minority views it as total, while the majority is evenly split between those who feel he is succeeding only partially and those who say he is not succeeding at all.

Regarding the government's policy toward the settlers as well, the public is divided into two camps of almost equal size: those who believe the government is showing too little consideration for their needs and demands, and those who think it is showing appropriate consideration. Only a small  minority assert that the government's consideration for the settlers is excessive. Accordingly, the majority rejects the claim that the settlers are receiving exaggerated concessions in return for their evacuation in the framework of the disengagement plan. More generally, the current measurement, compared to a previous measurement in 2002, found a significant decline in the sense of threat to personal and national security and an enhanced assessment of personal economic situation-which apparently explains the considerable improvement that has occurred in the personal mood of the Jewish public. Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey that was conducted  on Monday and Tuesday, May 30-31. Currently, some 57.5% of the Jewish public support the unilateral-disengagement plan, 35.5% oppose it, and 7% do not know (last month the rates of support and opposition stood at 56.1% and 38.0%). At the same time, the majority-52%-prefers the position that Israel should try to coordinate the disengagement with the Palestinian side so as to reduce the chances of implementing the plan under fire while transferring control of the territories to the Authority as smoothly as possible. Only 38% agree with the contrary view that, since the Palestinian side can promise neither an evacuation without fire nor a smooth transfer of control in Gaza, there is no point in devoting efforts to coordination with it. A segmentation of the positions on disengagement according to voting for the Knesset in the most recent elections reveals that among voters for all the large secular parties, including Likud, today as in the past there is a clear majority in support of the disengagement. However, the rates of support for the plan among the voters for the two ultra-Orthodox parties-Shas (25%) and Torah Judaism (16%)-are extremely low, indeed lower than those for the classical right-wing parties Mafdal (National Religious Party) (36%) and National Union (27%) voters. In other words, the ultra-Orthodox Right is the most extreme in its opposition to the disengagement plan. A similar pattern emerges on the question of coordinating the disengagement with the Palestinian side: the rates of those favoring coordination among Shas (12.5%) and Torah Judaism (16%) voters are considerably lower than the rates among voters for the other right-wing parties, including National Union (27%), Likud (51%), and Mafdal (64%) voters.

In light of the struggle over public opinion regarding the security implications of implementing the disengagement plan, and the various recent forecasts about the Palestinians' intentions on the "day after," and particularly taking into account the constant warnings about the danger of a third intifada erupting after the disengagement, we found that, indeed, 51% believe that if there is no progress in political contacts, then because of the lack of a political horizon, the ongoing occupation, and the grave economic situation of the Palestinians there is a high possibility of the outbreak of a further wave of Palestinian violence. Only 32% think that, given the results of the second intifada, there is no chance that another wave of violence will erupt in the near future, and the rest do not know.  Furthermore, in contrast to recent declarations by senior Israeli politicians that, if Hamas is successful in the upcoming elections to the Palestinian parliament, Israel will then terminate its contacts with the Authority, the present survey finds a majority of the public-50% vs. 41%-saying that even if Hamas is a senior partner in the Authority's leadership, Israel should continue to conduct negotiations with the elected leadership of the Palestinians. In other words, in contrast to the position of the current political leadership, most of the Jewish public believes Hamas should not be ignored as an important political factor in Palestinian society.

To the question: "Is, in your opinion, Palestinian President Abu Mazen succeeding in his efforts to dismantle the terror infrastructure?" only a tiny minority-1.5%-responded that he is succeeding fully, while the rest were more or less evenly divided between those who think he is partially succeeding (47%) and those who say he is not succeeding at all (46%). The abovementioned recognition of the need to take Hamas's power into account is apparently connected to the views of many that Abu Mazen is sincere in his efforts to dismantle the terror infrastructure. To the question: "In your opinion, is or is not Abu Mazen making sincere efforts to dismantle the terror infrastructure?" the opinions are divided between 46% who say he is and 45% who think he is not (the rest have no clear opinion on the matter). However, among those who believe Abu Mazen's efforts are genuine, the rate of those who support holding negotiations with the Authority even if Hamas becomes a senior partner in it (67%) is almost double the rate among those who see his efforts as insincere (36%). In other words, those who believe in the sincerity of Abu Mazen's intentions apparently think he will be more successful in his efforts to dismantle the terror infrastructure if Israel is prepared to negotiate with him when he heads a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, should Hamas score a great success in the elections. As for the domestic aspects of the disengagement, it turns out that only a minority of 10% thinks the government is showing excessive consideration for the needs and demands of the settlers who are supposed to be evacuated from their homes in the framework of the plan, whereas the majority is more or less evenly divided between 40% who think the treatment of the settlers is appropriate and 42% who feel that the authorities are insufficiently considering their needs and demands. Accordingly, compared to 37.5% who agree with the statement that the settlers are winning exaggerated concessions in return for their evacuation, 48.5% oppose or moderately oppose this statement. A segmentation of the positions on the issue by Knesset voting shows that among Meretz voters, 69% see the settlers' demands as excessive while 19% think they are not; in Labor and Shinui, a majority of 51% view the demands as excessive and about a third in the two parties do not think they are; in Likud, only 31% agree that the demands are excessive and 58% feel they are not excessive; and, respectively, in the National Union the figures are 28% and 57%, in Shas,
25% and 62.5%, in Mafdal, 18% and 82%, and in Torah Judaism, 16% and 63%. This month we thought it appropriate to check again, after a long period, the public's sense of personal security. It turns out that compared to September 2002, the last time we looked into the issue, a considerable improvement has occurred: whereas 61% said then that they felt a high or moderately high threat to their and their relatives' personal security, today only 43% feel this way. The rate of those feeling a low threat or none at all rose from 38% in the previous measurement to 56% today. As for national security, here too there was a decrease, albeit smaller, in the sense of threat-from 64% in 2002 to 51% today. The rate of those who feel a low threat to national security rose from 34% in 2002 to 46% currently. Also in regard to the interviewees' assessment of their economic situation, a change occurred in a similar direction between the two measurements-today, 24.5% define it as bad or very bad, 41% as medium, and 33% as good or very good. In 2002, however, 31% defined their situation as bad or very bad, 45% as medium, and only 24% as good. These changes apparently shed light on the considerable improvement in the public's current mood: only 15% now describe their mood as bad or very bad, compared to 31% in the previous measurement in November 2003; 35% define their mood as medium (38% previously); and 49% say it is now good or very good (compared to 21% in 2003). Indeed, a separate statistical analysis indicates that personal mood is influenced both by level of personal security and by economic situation, with the latter influence being slightly stronger.

The peace indexes for this month were: General Oslo Index: 40.8; Jews: 36.8 General Negotiation Index: 57.8; Jews: 54.9. 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 on May 30-31, 2005, and included 584 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% in each direction. IMRA