RAMALLAH: Fifty-three percent of the Jewish public supports encouraging Arab Palestinians to emigrate from Israel. Seventy-seven percent of immigrants from the former Soviet Union support this idea, compared with 47 percent of the veteran public, so finds the Israel Democracy Institute in its annual Index, published Monday.
The survey was carried out in March 2009 on a sample representative of the adult population in Israel of 1,191 respondents. The respondents were interviewed in three languages: Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian. The sampling error is 2.8 percent.
Only 27 percent of respondents objected to the statement that there should be “a Jewish majority in decisions relating to the fate of the country,” by comparison with 2003, when 38 percent objected to the same statement. These figures indicate broad support for decreasing the political rights of Arab minority.
Fifty-four percent of the general public (Jews and Arabs) feels that “only citizens loyal to the state are entitled to benefit from civil rights” (56 percent of the veterans, 67 percent of immigrants and 30 percent of the Arabs). Thirty-eight percent of the entire Jewish public believes that Jewish citizens should have more rights than non-Jewish citizens. In addition, 41 percent of veteran Jews are of the opinion that “Israeli Arabs face greater discrimination than Jewish Israelis,” compared to 28 percent of immigrants holding this view.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Parliament on Monday passed a controversial land reform law that allows local officials to privatize state land in urban centers, triggering the ire of Israel’s Arab minority.
The law, which had the backing of Netanyahu, was passed in the third and last reading by 61 votes against 45 in the 120-seat Knesset.
Arab MPs denounced the law which they said would block efforts by Palestinians who fled the creation of Israel in 1948 to recover their property or seek compensation.
Arab Israelis account for some 20 percent of Israel’s population.
