THE TAMI STEINMETZ CENTER
FOR PEACE RESEARCH
‫מרכז תמי שטינמץ‬
‫למחקרי שלום‬
Peace Index: January 2005
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann
In recent months we found cautious optimism among the Israeli Jewish public about
the chances of calming the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and at present
it has grown. Along with overwhelming support for conducting political negotiations
with the Palestinian side, along with greater belief that such negotiations could lead to
peace in the coming years, the majority also thinks new Palestinian leader Abu Mazen
is making sincere efforts to end the terror and has the ability to end or at least reduce
it substantially.
In the domestic sphere, despite enhanced fears that the resistance to the
disengagement plan could lead to a civil war, and the widespread view that the plan’s
opponents have been “marketing” their message more successfully than its supporters
and also are prepared to invest more effort in promoting the policy they favor, support
for the plan among most of the Jewish public remains stable, with a clear majority
also believing the government will eventually be able to implement it. The majority
favors taking various measures to make the domestic process easier, including
increasing the financial compensation to the evacuated settlers, preventing the transfer
to the Palestinians of their homes and infrastructures without suitable compensation,
allowing soldiers who oppose the evacuation not to take part in it, and closing the
zones of the evacuation to the media. In addition, the Jewish public supports—by a
rate of two to one—holding a referendum on the plan and stepped-up civic activity by
its supporters.
As for the means to be used against different types of settler resistance to the
evacuation, from curses and calling the evacuators Nazis to the use of weapons, a
large majority say none of these should cause an end to the evacuation. At the same
time, there is a clear preference not to resort to force against them and to attempt
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THE TAMI STEINMETZ CENTER
FOR PEACE RESEARCH
‫מרכז תמי שטינמץ‬
‫למחקרי שלום‬
dialogue, unless weapons are used against IDF soldiers taking part in the evacuation.
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In such a case, the prevalent preference is to continue the evacuation while
immediately employing force against the resisters.
Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey that was conducted on Monday
and Tuesday, January 31-February 1.
Seventy-seven percent of the Jewish public currently support or strongly support
holding peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and 51% believe strongly
or moderately that this will lead to Israeli-Palestinian peace in the coming years (in
the Arab sector the optimism is high indeed: 94.5% favor negotiations and 78%
believe in their chances of bearing fruit in the coming years). The optimistic
atmosphere is also reflected in the Oslo Index, which lately has been in a rising trend.
The high support and belief in the chances for a settlement can, apparently, be
attributed to the assessment of a 59% majority (70% among the Arabs) that Abu
Mazen is making sincere efforts to stop the terror on the Palestinian side. Fifty-five
percent (66% among the Arabs) also believe he has the capability to significantly
reduce or even end the Palestinian violence.
The broad support for the disengagement plan—59%—remains unchanged, and a
segmentation of the rates of support and opposition by voting for the large parties also
indicates great stability. The rates of support come to 89% among Labor voters, 84%
for Shinui, 78% for Meretz (Yahad), and 60% for Likud, while the corresponding rate
for Mafdal (the National Religious Party) is 20%, for Shas 7%, and for the National
Union 0%. However, the Jewish public is split regarding the danger that
implementing the plan will ignite a civil war—49% see the danger as very high or
high (in September this rate was 40%), 46% as low or very low (interestingly, an
overwhelming majority—67%—of the Arab public sees little such danger). Some
56.5% think the disengagement opponents are currently “marketing” their message to
the Israeli public more effectively than the supporters, and just about the same total
say the opponents—more than the supporters—are prepared to invest effort in
advancing the policy they favor. It is not surprising, then,
that about 60% of the
public—similar to the rate of supporters—see it is desirable that the disengagement
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supporters express their position more effectively via petitions, demonstrations, and
the like. However, despite the assessment of the marketing success and determination
of the disengagement opponents, a very large majority—74%—expect the
government will ultimately succeed in implementing the plan and evacuating the
settlements. This is higher than the public’s evaluation of the plan’s chances of
success in December (63%). A cross-section of expectations on this issue with
positions on disengagement shows, as expected, that among the plan’s supporters
there is unanimity (91%) that the government will be able to carry it out. Interestingly,
though, among the opponents as well a majority, albeit not large (52%-41%), holds
this view.
Whether because of the desire to see the plan succeed and/or empathy toward the
evacuees, there is a clear tendency to support measures to ease the process. Seventy
percent support increased compensations to the settlers, 68% favor ensuring that their
homes and infrastructures are not transferred to the Palestinians without suitable
compensation, 53% believe soldiers who oppose the evacuation should be allowed not
to take part in it, and the same rate supports closing the zones of the evacuation to the
media. Furthermore, despite the prime minister’s opposition to a referendum on the
disengagement plan, most of the Jewish public, at a similar rate to support for the plan
(61%), favors a referendum. Indeed, a segmentation of support rates for a referendum
by position on the disengagement plan shows that even among the supporters a
majority, albeit small (52%-45%), wants one to be held. As expected, the rate of those
favoring this is higher among opponents of the plan (79%).
How should the IDF react to resistance by settlers? We presented four scenarios of
resistance: settlers curse the evacuators and call them Nazis, settlers resist while
holding Torahs in their hands, settlers lie with their small children on the roads, and
settlers resist violently and use weapons against the soldiers. On all these cases only a
small minority—12%-17.5%—favors stopping the evacuation altogether. On the first
three scenarios, the prevalent view supports continuing the evacuation as planned
without using force against the settlers—48% in the case of curses, 45% in the case of
resistance with Torah in hand, and 33% in the case of involving small children in the
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resistance. However, while for these scenarios only a small minority—13%-17%—
supports continuing the evacuation while immediately using force, in the scenario of
use of violence and weapons against soldiers, the highest number of respondents—
38%—opt for continuing the evacuation as planned while immediately using force
against the resisters. On each of these scenarios, 20%-25% favor putting the
evacuation on hold and negotiating with the settlers to calm the situation. The overall
picture, then, is one of broad opposition by the Jewish public to stopping the
evacuation in any of the scenarios we presented, but with a clear preference for
avoiding force against settlers who resist.
Interestingly, Israeli Arabs also do not favor force against the settlers, at least in
regard to the three scenarios in which the settlers do not resist violently or use
weapons. However, in the case of that scenario, a considerable majority of the Arab
public—62%—supports continuing the evacuation while immediately using force
against them.
Indexes:
General Oslo: 42.2 (in December: 38.5); Oslo Jews: 38.5 (in December: 35.7)
General negotiation: 61.6 (in December: 56.8); Negotiation Jews: 59.7 (in December:
55.6).
The Peace Index project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research
at 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 January 31 and February 1, 2005, and included 581 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.
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