Peace Index / Arafat's leaving won't change things
By Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann
There is no optimism among Israeli Jews that with other Palestinian leaders, it will be possible to reach an agreement
The majority that supports the disengagement plan remains stable even after the fierce and vociferous struggle over its approval in the Knesset. However, the Israeli Jewish public is equally divided between those who think Arafat's fall from the political stage should not affect the implementation of the disengagement plan in Gaza and those who say that in light of Arafat's removal, there should first be an attempt to coordinate the process in the Gaza Strip with the new Palestinian leadership, leaving Gaza unilaterally only if no such coordination is achieved.
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There is also a split on the issue of whether, given the new situation created by Arafat's leaving the picture, it is better to try and reach a comprehensive peace with the Palestinian leadership that will take his place and, therefore, suspend for now the implementation of the Gaza disengagement only, with the rate of those in favor of suspending the disengagement so as to try and resolve the whole problem higher than the rate of those against such a suspension.
Arafat's relegation to the sick bed has in no way moderated the animosity toward him on the Israeli side, and his image has remained very negative: As in the past, a majority of Israeli Jews view him as a terrorist and only a very small minority see the Palestinian leader as a statesman. A clear majority also think that, in retrospect, Israel erred in allowing him to return here from Tunis in 1994 in the framework of the Oslo agreement. There is also a substantial rise in the rate of those who think Arafat in fact has controlled the Palestinian street since the start of the intifada in regard to violent acts against Israel.
Nevertheless, there is no optimism on the Israeli Jewish side that with other Palestinian leaders, it will be possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. This pessimism can be explained by the wide (and for years, stable) consensus in the Jewish public that most of the Palestinians have not accepted the existence of the state of Israel and would destroy it if they could.
Confidence in IDF
In view of the struggles over approving the disengagement plan this month and the anticipated political changes following the change in leadership on the Palestinian side, we checked how the public evaluates the performance of leaders and institutions in the context of managing the conflict with the Palestinians. The only body whose performance the Jewish majority rated positively in this context is the Israel Defense Forces, and after it, by a considerable gap, the media. The performance of the government and the Knesset was assessed as average or lower.
Among the leaders, a majority evaluated positively the performance of Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and slightly after him came Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon. The common view of the performance of the head of the opposition, Shimon Peres, and of Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was medium, while Finance Minister Netanyahu received the lowest grade of all of them.
Having reached nine years since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, we wanted to find out how this event had affected the political debate in Israel. The widespread view, it turns out, is that the assassination has not affected the debates between the right and the left or between the religious and the secular.
Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey for October, 2004, which was conducted from Monday to Wednesday, November 1-3.
Despite the grave reservations that were raised during the Knesset debate and the harsh statements by members of the settler community and their leaders, today a majority of about 60 percent of the Israeli Jewish public strongly or moderately support Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement plan from Gaza (the rate of support in the Arab sector is now even higher than 70 percent).
Coordinating with the PA
At the same time, with the deterioration in Arafat's health and his removal in effect from the political sphere, there are disagreements regarding the options of carrying out the disengagement unilaterally (40 percent in favor) or trying to reach understandings with the new Palestinian leadership about the withdrawal from Gaza (40 percent). In the Arab sector a considerably higher rate of 53 percent prefer trying to reach an understanding with the Palestinians as opposed to continuing with the plan unilaterally (29 percent).
On the question of whether, in light of the new situation in the Palestinian Authority, it is preferable to try to return to negotiations for a comprehensive peace settlement with the new Palestinian leadership while suspending temporarily the disengagement from Gaza only, 48 percent support a suspension and an attempt to reach a comprehensive agreement while 43 percent oppose this. As expected, here too, the Arab public prefers dialogue with the Palestinian leadership - 58 percent favor suspending the disengagement so as to reach a comprehensive peace, while 30 percent are against it.
Arafat's illness has not softened the animosity toward him in the Jewish street, with 79 percent characterizing him as a terrorist and only 5 percent as a statesman. Fifteen percent placed him in the middle. A segmentation of this characterization by party voting shows that while a majority of voters for all the parties indeed puts the Palestinian leader at the terrorist pole, this majority clearly differs from party to party. Thus, 93 percent of National Union voters, 92 percent of National Religious Party voters, 88 percent of Likud voters, 82 percent of Shinui voters, 76 percent of Shas voters and 50 percent of Meretz and Labor voters define him as a terrorist; as for defining him as a statesman, 11 percent of Labor voters, 10.5 percent of Shinui voters, 10 percent of Meretz voters, 5 percent of Shas voters, 3 percent of Likud and NRP voters and none of the National Union voters define him as a statesman.
A mistake to let him return
For the entire Jewish public a clear majority of 64 percent think Israel did not do the right thing when it allowed Arafat to return here in the framework of implementing the Oslo Accords (23 percent believe Israel acted correctly, and 13 percent had no opinion on the matter).
The opinions on this question in the Arab street are clearly different; in a sample that we checked, three-fourths characterize him as a statesman, 15 percent place him between the statesman pole and the terrorist pole and only 7 percent define Arafat as a terrorist (the rest have no opinion on the matter). As for the permission that Israel gave Arafat to return here in 1994, some 69 percent thought the decision was right, while 12.5 percent said it was not the right thing to do (the rest had no opinion).
In the past the Jewish public was divided as to whether, since the outbreak of the intifada, Arafat was in control of the Palestinian street regarding violent acts against Israel, but prevalent today is the belief of the Israeli political and military leadership that Arafat controlled what was happening (75 percent), with only 20 percent now saying the events were out of his control. This assessment regarding Arafat's control of acts against Israelis is common to voters for all parties. Interestingly, in the Arab public as well the prevalent view is that Arafat was in control of what was happening (54 percent), with 32 percent saying it was out of his control.
On the question of whether, the Oslo process having failed because of Arafat, it is now possible to achieve peace with a different Palestinian leadership or, conversely, impossible to reach peace with the Palestinians no matter who stands at their helm, the Jewish public is divided, with a slight advantage for those who believe peace can be reached with a different leadership (49 percent) over those who think peace with the Palestinians is impossible and it makes no difference who leads them (43 percent). Still, the majority - 58 percent - believe that the chances of reaching a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians today, after Arafat's removal from political life, are low or nonexistent (32 percent view these chances as quite or very high). The disparities here between voters for the different parties are large, with a majority of the optimists in the left-wing parties (80 percent of Meretz voters and 63 percent of Labor voters) and a majority of the pessimists in the parties on the right, even after Arafat's leaving the scene (83 percent of NRP voters, 81 percent of Shas voters, 79 percent of National Union voters and 64 percent of Likud voters).
The assessment in the Arab sector is generally similar to that in the Jewish sector, with a clear lead for the pessimists (53.5 percent) over the optimists (27 percent) regarding the chances of reaching a comprehensive peace even with Arafat gone.
This pessimism about the current chances, even after the rise of a new Palestinian leadership, of reaching a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians can be explained in light of the prevalent assessment of the Palestinians' intentions toward Israel. As in the past, about two-thirds of the public agree with the statement that most of the Palestinians have not accepted Israel's existence and would destroy it if they could (13 percent disagree with this statement and 23 percent are not sure one way or the other or have no opinion on the matter). In the Arab sector, a majority of 58 percent disagree with the statement about the destructive intentions of the Palestinians, 22 percent agree with it, and the rest (about 20 percent) have no clear opinion or no opinion at all on this question.
Approval for Mofaz
Given the strong support for the disengagement plan and the likelihood that Israel will have to reconsider its policy toward the Palestinians with the replacement of their leadership, we checked the public's degree of confidence in some relevant Israeli figures and institutions in terms of their performance in managing the conflict with the Palestinians. At the top of those receiving good grades among the Jewish sector stood Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, with 57 percent evaluating his performance as good or very good, 23 percent as medium, and 11 percent as poor or very poor (the rest did not know). The corresponding figures for the prime minister were 52 percent, 29 percent and 17 percent (2 percent did not know), and for the chief of staff, Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon, they were 51 percent good, 19 percent average and 7 percent poor (23 percent did not know).
Evaluations of the performance of Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom were more lukewarm - for Peres: 33 percent good, 28 percent average and 29 percent poor (10 percent did not know); for Shalom: 26.5 percent good, 36 percent average and 21 percent poor (16.5 percent did not know).
The grades given to Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were lower - 30 percent assessed his performance in the context of managing the conflict as good, 23 percent as medium, and 39 percent as poor (8 percent did not know). Among institutions, the IDF received a very positive assessment - 79 percent good, 11 percent average and only 4 percent percent poor (6 percent did not know). The media came in second, with 39 percent giving it a good grade in this context, 25 percent average and 31 percent poor (5 percent did not know).
The government and the Knesset, however, received very low grades - the government: 19 percent good, 43 percent average and 33 percent poor (5 percent did not know); the Knesset: 11 percent good, 41 percent average and 40.5 percent poor (7.5 percent did not know).
The picture for the Arab sector is clearly different - here only Shimon Peres won a positive evaluation, with all the other Israeli decision-makers and bodies receiving low grades.
Assassination trauma
With this month marking the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, we again checked how the public views in retrospect the effects of the traumatic event on the Israeli political debate between the right and the left and between the religious and the secular. On both dimensions the majority view today, exactly as four years ago on the fifth anniversary of the assassination, is that it did not affect the political debate between right and left (41 percent) nor between religious and secular (44 percent). Some 33 percent think the assassination aggravated the right-left debate, while 18 percent say that it moderated it.
As for the religious-secular split, the figures were similar - 39 percent say the assassination aggravated the situation ; 7 percent say it moderated it. Interestingly, most of the Arab public believes that on both dimensions the assassination aggravated the political debate in Israel - 56 percent thought so regarding the right-left divide and 65 percent regarding the religious-secular split.
The Peace indexes for this month were: the Oslo Index for the overall sample, 38.2 (for the Jewish sample, 34.9), and the overall Negotiation Index, 52.7 (51.1 for the Jewish sample).
The Peace Index project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research 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 from November 1-3, 2004, and included 579 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. |
