55% of Jewish Israelis back ban on sale or rental to Arabs
The chattering classes may not be very happy about the rabbis' letter banning sales or rentals of homes to Arabs, but the Jewish public is largely in favor.A survey by the Panels Institute (link in Hebrew) at the end of last week shows that 55% of Israel's adult Jewish population is in favor of the ban. That includes 41% of secular Israelis, 64% of traditional Israelis and 88% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. 58% oppose firing the rabbis who are state employees and who signed the letter. That includes 46% of secular, 73% of traditional and 92.5% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox.
The survey then asked what you would do if an Arab family moved into your neighborhood. 69% of the secular, 52% of the traditional and 15% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox said they had no problem with that. 24% of the secular, 31% of the traditional and 78% of the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox said that they would try to stop it.
Margin of error is 4.4%.
I don't expect that the rabbis will be fired, and I suspect that the numbers that support the substance of the ruling are much higher. For years, it's been the seculars of Tel Aviv and its environs who insist that we must separate from the Arabs. But they can't admit rabbis are right about anything, and they can't admit that they agree with refusing to rent to Arabs because, after all, that would make them 'racists.'
The picture at the top is Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Tzfat (Safed) who started all this.
Labels: Deuteronomy 7:2, Lehava, Panels Institute, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, renting or selling land to non-Jews in Israel
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:36 AM
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