Peace Index: March 2008
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann

In this survey we again looked into the Jewish public's positions on a few
key issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ways to
resolve it. Over time slight, gradual changes sometimes occur that
eventually amount to significant changes, altering the public conceptual
map. We did not find such a change, however, regarding the preferred
solution. This survey, too, found overwhelming support (68%) for the "two
states for two peoples" solution (except among voters for the National
Religious Party-National Union and Yisrael Beiteinu, where only a minority
supports this solution). A similar rate also favors continuing the
negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. We also found, though, evidence
of profound pessimism about the chances of reaching a real peace with the
Palestinians. About three-quarters do not believe the negotiations will lead
to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, and an identical proportion says
that even if an agreement is signed it will not, from the Palestinians'
standpoint, end the historic conflict with Israel.

This pessimism is apparently what fosters the hard-line positions that most
of the Jewish public now takes on central aspects of the conflict and the
chances of resolving it. It turns out, for instance, that in retrospect only
among Meretz, Labor, and Kadima does a majority say the decision to launch
the peace process at the beginning of the 1990s was correct. In the public
overall, the number of those who think so (40%) is lower than the percentage
of those who believe it was a mistake to enter the peace process that
enabled the Oslo accords (47%). We found a similar mindset among those who
say that if a peace treaty entails difficult concessions, it's preferable to
remain in the existing situation (49%, with 43% preferring an agreement even
if its price is difficult concessions).

We were surprised to discover that even though, over the years, the concept
of "occupation" has become more common both in the political discourse and
the media, today a majority of the Jewish public defines the West Bank as
"liberated territory" (55%) and not as "occupied territory" (32%). This may
explain the new popularity of the position (57%) that the Green Line should
not be considered the future border between Israel and the Palestinians, and
that a new borderline should be established so that most of the settlements
will be on the Israeli side and large Israeli Arab communities would move to
the Palestinian side (only 23% of the Jewish public currently favors the
Green Line as the future border; only among Meretz voters does a majority
take the opposite view).

Interestingly, even among those who see the West Bank as "liberated
territory" there is a clear majority-albeit small compared to the majority
among those who see it as "occupied territory"-of supporters of a two-state
solution. Here too the pessimism about the chances of ending the historic
conflict with the Palestinians is widespread among both groups, though, as
expected, more so among those who view the West Bank as liberated.

Moreover, if a peace agreement is signed on the basis of the
two-states-for-twopeoples formula, the majority (65%) would want the border
between the two states to be a closed one, without free passage from state
to state. The desire for segregation of the two peoples also emerges in the
broad opposition (75.5%) to the idea of a binational state as an alternative
solution to the two-state formula.

Finally, a considerable majority (61%) does not believe in Prime Minister
Olmert's sincerity when he says he intends to reach a peace agreement with
the Palestinian Authority by the end of this year. Indeed, only among Labor
voters (not even among Kadima voters) does a majority credit the sincerity
of his intentions.

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 Herman. The
telephone interviews were conducted by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv
University on March 31 and April 1, 2008, and included 588 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 4.5%.

For the survey data see: http://www.tau.ac.il/peace