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 dialogue, unless weapons are used against
IDF soldiers taking part in the evacuation.

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 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 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