Tel Aviv, (DPA) A majority of Israel’s Jewish citizens – 56 percent – are pessimistic that the upcoming international conference on the Israel-Palestinian conflict will increase the sides’ chances of reaching a peace agreement, a just-released poll has found.
In addition, more than three-quarters – 77 percent – think Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government are too weak, politically, to sign an agreement in Israel’s name, especially one which entails what Israelis regard as significant concessions to the Palestinians.
According to the latest “Peace Index” survey, only 39 percent think the Annapolis meeting will increase the chances of reaching a peace deal, even though about two-thirds – 65 percent – think Israel cannot continue indefinitely its current state of relations with the Palestinians, and 62 percent consider the Palestinian issue the most urgent or moderately urgent on the government’s agenda.
The Jewish Israeli public’s readiness for concessions is also not high, the poll found, with 59 percent opposing the Palestinian demand to transfer Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty, as opposed to 33 percent who would be willing to accept such a move as part of a peace deal.
Opposition to the demand that Palestinian refugees or their descendents return to the homes they abandoned in what is now Israel is also high, with an overwhelming 87 percent against any being allowed to return.
Arab Israelis are slightly more optimistic, the survey found, with more thinking the Annapolis conference will increase the chances of a peace deal – 46 percent, compared to 37.5 percent who think it will not.
And a majority of 63 percent of Israel’s Arab citizens favour transferring Jerusalem’s Arab neighbourhoods to Palestinian sovereignty, and 71 percent support the return of the refugees or their descendents to Israel.
The poll was conducted Oct 8-10, on behalf of Tel Aviv University’s Tami Steinmetz Centre for Peace Research. Some 580 people, representing Israel’s Jewish and Arab populations, were interviewed. The margin of error was 4.5 percent.