Israel Matzav

53% of Israeli Jews want Arabs encouraged to leave

This ought to make the Leftists happy. In a survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, 53% of Israeli Jews favored encouraging Arabs to leave the country.

The Israel Democracy Institute released the results of its Israeli Democracy Ranking and poll on Tuesday, revealing that 53 percent of Jewish Israelis say the government should encourage Arabs to emigrate from Israel, and only 51% believe Jews and Arabs should have equal rights.

The poll showed that the more religious respondents were, the less they believed Arabs should have equal rights, with 33.5% of secular Jews opposing rights for Arabs, as opposed to 51% of traditional Jews, 65% of religious Jews, and 72% of haredim. In addition, 86% of Jewish Israelis believe that important decisions should be made by a Jewish majority.

The institute's findings were presented to President Shimon Peres, Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman and High Court Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch.

Nearly half (46%) of Jewish Israelis polled said that they would not want to live near Arabs, and 39% would be opposed to living near foreign workers or people with mental illness. One-fourth would not want to live near a homosexual couple, and 23% opposed having haredi neighbors.

Arabs had different preferences, with 70% opposing living near gays, 67% against haredi neighbors and 65% against former settlers. About half (46%) would not want to be neighbors with foreign workers.

I'm not phased by this kind of stuff. 'Encouraging to leave' means paying to leave - not forcibly expelling. And unfortunately, it's completely rational: When is the last time you recall someone in this country who was not an Arab strapping on explosives and blowing himself up?

No, we're not a perfect society. Given the circumstances under which we live, can you blame us? How many native Europeans would like to pay their Muslim populations to leave? I'd bet the percentages are close to what they are here.

UPDATE 10:47 PM

Here are some more interesting results from that survey.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman must be pleased: Fully 54 percent of Israelis say the right to vote should be conditioned on a pledge of allegiance to Israel as a democratic, Jewish and Zionist state, according to the Israel Democracy Institute's annual Democracy Index survey.

Among Jewish Israelis, the rate rises to 62 percent.

...

Fully 62 percent of Jewish Israelis said that until the Israel-Palestinian conflict ends, the views of Israeli Arabs should not be taken into account on foreign affairs and defense issues. Prof. Tamar Hermann of IDI said she found this result "horrific. That's ostracism of a kind no democracy can accept. These are citizens - not foreigners."

Plus, 33 percent of Jews said that in the event of war or any other severe crisis, Israel should treat its Arab citizens the way America treated its Japanese citizens during World War II - by putting them in internment camps. "They are perceived as a fifth column," Hermann said.

She said the findings show that from a democratic perspective, the most problematic rift in the country is the Jewish-Arab divide.

"Today, people say things they would once have been embarrassed to say," she added.

Some 55 percent of Jews said it is legitimate for the government to allocate more funding to Jewish towns than to Arab ones, while 70 percent opposed appointing more Arabs to senior civil service positions and 67 percent opposed having In addition, 67 percent opposed allowing first-degree relatives of Israeli Arabs to immigrate for the sake of family unification.

If the Arabs spend enough time proclaiming that they are 'Palestinians' rather than Israelis, should anyone be surprised at this result?

Labels: Israel is a Jewish state, transfer

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:36 PM