T. Belman. This question is an odd one. The thought of transferring or expelling Arab Israelis from Israel is a thought that virtually anyone entertains. There is no discussion on the issue. On the other hand there is a discussion on whether to pay the Arabs to voluntarily leave Judea and Samaria. But even in that case, far less than 50% of Israelis support the idea.
The (huge) holes in the Pew survey
By Nathan Jeffat, JEWISH CHRONICLE
Every opinion pollster hopes that their survey will generate a strong headline, and when Pew released its magnum opus on Israel this week, it certainly got its wish. One in two Israeli Jews want to see Arabs chased out of their country, it seems from the figures.
There is a worrying strain in Israeli society that believes in forcing Arabs to leave, but one in two Jewish citizens — seriously? This is off the chart compared to past surveys on similar topics. What, exactly, were people asked?
At first glance, the question seemed straightforward. People were asked if “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” But this actually left a lot for the respondents to define for themselves.
Did they respond in relation to all Arabs, as one would gather from the way results have been presented? Or were they thinking about specific cases, such as Arabs who sympathise with terror or — as-per the policy that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently having checked by state lawyers — to move the families of terrorists who carry out attacks out of Israel?
Every respondent will have interpreted the question in their own way, which is bad planning by Pew because it needed just one more letter to make this aspect of the question clearer. The definite article is extremely important in Hebrew, and if Pew was interested in what Israeli Jews think about the presence of Arabs, it should have asked about “the Arabs” not “Arabs” — which would have required one extra letter, a hey.
The Israel Prize-winning sociologist Sammy Smooha of Haifa University, who compiles a regular survey on Jewish attitudes towards Israel’s Arab minority and vice-versa, has called the question “misleading and vague”.
But beyond a general fluffiness with the question, there was a deeper problem with the concepts that it probed. The meaning of “expulsion” was clear, but what was meant by “transfer”? The leading Israeli pollster Camil Fuchs, who was not involved in the Pew research, said he understood the word haavara — transfer — to refer to a process by which nobody leaves their homes.
He said that while it would be subject to respondents’ own interpretation, it mostly signals the proposal to redraw borders in order to place some Israeli Arabs under Palestinian jurisdiction. Also known as “land swaps”, this is a mainstream Israeli doctrine, based on the premise that if a peace deal ever happens, Israel will give up parts of Israel to the Palestinians in return for holding on to some settlements. US President Barack Obama has advocated land swaps as a way to make a peace deal realistic.
And so, a question that will have been for some — and we cannot ignore this — expelling all Arabs, for others will have been about expelling or physically transferring some individuals. Meanwhile, there will have been respondents who were just embracing land swaps. Dr Fuchs says that Pew’s sky-high figure resulted from that no-no of polling known as “double barrelling.”
This is where a question touches on two issues but allows just one answer — and often creates a single impression about people who respond positively. “You don’t ask a question about two things together,” said Dr Fuchs, suggesting that “expelled” and “transferred” are politically-speaking the “opposites” of each other but were squeezed together by “double barrelling”.
Dr Fuchs, a frequent pollster for Ha’aretz whose polls often tell hard truths about Israeli society, said: “I don’t presume that all or a great many of the people who answered ‘yes’ want to move all the Arabs.”
In other results from the Pew survey, in which the question about transferring Arabs was just one of many, 76 per cent of the Israeli Jews surveyed said they saw a Jewish state as compatible with democracy, but in cases where democratic principles and Jewish law clash, with 62 per cent said the former should take priority over the latter, while 24 per cent thought Hebrew law should take precedence.
There were also strong indications that with Israel’s religious population growing fast, the weighting of opinion on this issue will change. Some 86 per cent of Charedim and 69 per cent of religious-Zionists would like to see Jewish law binding on Jewish citizens as the law of the state.
Look to the Right Column. Mantua Books has two books that should be read and both reject multiculturalism. Detectable Lie and Tolerism.
@ Keli-A:
Great info. I wasn’t aware of these polls. But I understand the phenomena. I was born and raised in Canada. I identify with white folks. I feel estranged from other Canadians until they convince m,e on an individual basis that they are as Canadian as I.
Is Israel there is a huge divide between Arabs and Jews. Neither group wants to live with or integrate with the other. They are aliens to each other. The key is that they are immersed in different cultures. The best solution is separation. This is what the left is calling for. The right want separation also but not from our land. The left doesn’t care about the land.
Multiculturalism is a fairy tale. It is contrary to human nature. America succeeded because it was a melting pot. Each immigrant gave up their own identity to become American. It is a big mistake to try to bring two alien cultures together and to try to get them to live together especially when neither wants to give up their culture and identity. Separation.
Israeli Poll: Israelis Support Ethnic Cleansing, Annexation and Apartheid State
October 22, 2012
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/10/22/israeli-poll-israelis-support-population-transfer-annexation-and-apartheid-state/
excerpts:
The majority of the Jewish public, 59 percent, wants preference[s] for Jews over Arabs in…job [appointments] in government ministries. Almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don’t want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don’t want their children in the same class with Arab children.
A third of the Jewish public wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and a large majority of 69 percent objects to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.
A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. A quarter – 24 percent – believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 percent believe they are “a necessary situation.”
Almost half – 47 percent – want part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 percent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements.
Although the territories have not been annexed, most of the Jewish public (58 percent ) already believes Israel practices apartheid against Arabs. Only 31 percent think such a system is not in force here. Over a third (38 percent ) of the Jewish public wants Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them, while 48 percent object.
…The survey indicates that a third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against its Arab citizens. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories.
…The interviewees did not object strongly to describing Israel’s character as “apartheid” already today, without annexing the territories. Only 31 percent objected to calling Israel an “apartheid state” and said “there’s no apartheid at all.”
In contrast, 39 percent believe apartheid is practiced “in a few fields”; 19 percent believe “there’s apartheid in many fields” and 11 percent do not know.
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The trend has been steady in favor of transfer for many years. My gut tells me that the figure in favor of transfer and annexation is much higher than the polling to date people are still reticent from voicing their true till now un-Politically Correct views.
Survey: Most Israeli Jews Wouldn’t Give Palestinians Vote if West Bank Was Annexed
Survey, conducted by Dialog on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, exposes anti-Arab, ultra-nationalist views espoused by a majority of Israeli Jews.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/survey-most-israeli-jews-wouldn-t-give-palestinians-vote-if-west-bank-was-annexed.premium-1.471644
diana Said:
1- Anywhere …who cares?
2- Nearest border and dump em. We will provide each person with a bottle of water and a box of matzos
This is crazy. Hebrew, English, Pew, etc.etc.
Numbers count and Arabs (I refuse to call them Palestinians) are quite a lot in Israel. It’s impossible to transfer (where to?) such a big number of people. Some solutions:
1) Help Arabs get a higher standard of leaving to make them more loyal to Israel.
2)Give them compensation for leaving the country, plus a written agreement that they won’t participate in any demonstrations, etc. against Israel. (well………..I love to daydream)
3)Transfer where to?