Newswise — Arab attitudes toward Israel and the Jewish majority are becoming more critical and militant over the past several years: only a minority of 41% of Israeli Arabs recognizes Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, compared to 65.6% who recognized this right in 2003. In 2008, 40.5% claimed that the Holocaust never happened, compared to 28% in 2006. This is revealed in the annual index of Arab-Jewish relations in Israel launched in 2003 by Prof. Sammy Smooha of the University of Haifa. The full details of the index were revealed yesterday at a conference at the University of Haifa.
The 2008 index draws on face-to-face interviews with a representative national sample of 700 men and women from the Arab population in Israel (including Druze and Bedouins). The index reveals deterioration in Arab views of Israel and Jews. According to Prof. Smooha, Holocaust denial among Israeli Arabs crosses sectors, while 37% of those denying the Holocaust have post-secondary school and higher education.
Additionally, the index shows that 53.7% of Israeli Arabs recognize Israel's right to exist as an independent state, compared to 81.1% in 2003. 56% agree that the right of return of Arab refugees should only be to a future Palestinian state, compared to 72.2% in 2003.
41.4% said that they participated in the past year in protests, compared to 28.7% who did so in 2003, and 12.6% support use of all means, including violence, in the struggle to improve their situation, compared to 5.4% in 2003. 53.8% of Israeli Arabs claimed that they agree that Arabs study in Hebrew schools, a drop from 70.5% in 2003. 47.3% oppose the idea of having a Jewish neighbor, compared to 27.2% who expressed such opposition in 2003.
"This deterioration in Arab views is the outcome of a series of factors, such as the Second Lebanon War, the impasse with the Palestinians, the non-implementation of the Or Commission, the closing down of investigations against police officers who shot to death Arab demonstrators in October 2000, the publication of the Arab future vision documents calling for the transformation of Israel into a bi-national state, and more," Prof. Smooha said. Despite the deterioration in recent years, Prof. Smooha, who began polling Jewish-Arab public opinion in 1976, emphasized that in a perspective of the last 30 years, there has been no major change in the Israeli Arab stance.
"The overall non-escalation of Arab views between 1976 and 2008 refutes the widespread thesis held by the public at large, policy-makers, and academic researchers that Arab civilians are going through a process of radicalization in their views and are on the road to violent confrontation with the Jews and the state. The long-term lack of deterioration shows that the Arabs are actually going through a process of adjustment to the state and Jews, and that they are striving to achieve equal status with the Jews, and peace that is founded on the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. They have no real substitute for their lives as a minority in the State of Israel," Prof. Smooha concluded.
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