Shocka: Most Jerusalem Arabs would rather not live in 'Palestine'
I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to hear that most Arabs in 'east' Jerusalem would rather not live in 'Palestine' (Hat Tip: Daily Alert). The awkward fact is that the 270,000 Arabs who live in East Jerusalem may not be very enthusiastic about joining Palestine. The survey, which was designed and supervised by former State Department Middle East researcher David Pollock, found that only 30 percent said they would prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35 percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they didn't know or refused to answer.) Forty percent said they would consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of Israel rather than Palestine, and 54 percent said that if their neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine.It's been true for years that the 'Palestinian' (and 'Israeli Arab') leadership is far more extreme than the people they purport to represent. This is not the first survey that has shown results like this. Why does anyone expect it to change? Would you like to be led by someone who remains in office two years after his term expired? Would you like to live under a government that has never had a peaceful transition of power? So why would anyone think that Arabs like to live that way? Hmmm. That has broader implications, doesn't it?
The reasons for these attitudes are pretty understandable, even healthy. Arabs say they prefer Israel's jobs, schools, health care and welfare benefits to those of a Palestinian state -- and their nationalism is not strong enough for them to set aside these advantages in order to live in an Arab country. The East Jerusalemites don't much love Israel -- they say they suffer from discrimination. But they seem to like what it has to offer. Remarkably, 56 percent said they traveled inside Israel at least once a week; 60 percent said access to its Mediterranean beaches was "very important" or "moderately important" to them.
"Quite clearly there is a discrepancy between people's attitudes and the assumption that Palestinian neighborhoods should be part of Palestine," said Pollock, whose work was sponsored by Pechter Middle East polls and the Council on Foreign Relations. "That's not actually what the people want."
Labels: East Jerusalem, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Palestinian Authority corruption
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:45 AM
2 Comments:
Yup. The Arabs may hate Israel but they appreciate the stability and peace it has provided in Jerusalem and they show no signs of wanting to give it up.
There is no support in Jerusalem for a redivision of the city.
"...found that only 30 percent said they would prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution, while 35 percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship. (The rest said they didn't know or refused to answer.)"
My guess is that a majority of the remaining 35% would also prefer Israeli citizenship but are just too reticent to say it. Which really means that today, a solid 2/3, maybe more, of Jerusalem resident Arabs would prefer Israeli citizenship. I'd also guess that a significant percentage of Gaza and West Bank Arabs would also prefer Israeli Citizenship over any Palestinian Citizenship, but wouldn't dare to express this in any poll.
Let's see, I could be a citizen of a prosperous, dynamic, FREE, democratic, rule-of-law Western-oriented state...or a citizen of an impoverished, dictatorial third world dungheap with no reasonable hope of changing. That takes about a nano-second to make a choice.
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