Poll: 76% of Israelis back Arab Peace Initiative

Some 76 per cent of Israelis said they were willing to support a peace agreement with the Palestinians based on the Arab Peace Initiative, the Walla website published.

Participants in the poll, by the Israeli Peace Initiative Group Yisrael Yozemet, expressed their support of the Initiative which promotes “completely peaceful relations between Israel and all of the Islamic and Arab countries after the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, including a land swap, with East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as a conciliatory solution for the refugee issue.”

According to the Israeli Peace Initiative Group, which encourages the Israeli government to adopt the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, the more the Israelis know about the content of the Initiative the more they will accept it.

According to 72 per cent of respondents, Israelis want to reach an agreement that puts an end to the conflict. On the other hand, 77 per cent believe Palestinians do not want that. Meanwhile 63 per cent said they would support an agreement that could achieve peace between Israel and Arab and Islamic countries in exchange for Israeli concessions, but the required concessions were not mentioned.

The poll also indicated that 49 per cent said they would back a peace agreement that stipulated “only the Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem would be part of the Palestinian capital, and that 250,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem would become citizens of the Palestinian state, after being citizens of Israel, which is the current situation.”

With regards the holy sites, 49.9 per cent said their support for an agreement would increase if “the holy sites in Al-Aqsa would be managed by Israel, the Arab countries and an international party, and will not be controlled by a specific authority, meaning, they will not be under any specific sovereignty and worshippers from all religions would be guaranteed access”.

Some 73.9 per cent of respondents said they would most likely support an agreement where “there will be no right of return for Palestinian refugees to land controlled by Israel, except for a symbolic number and only with Israel’s approval”.

The poll was conducted on a representative sample of 500 Jewish Israelis through IPANEL, which maintains a representative panel of some 100,000 Israelis. Of the participants 52 per cent identified themselves as “right-wing” (28 per cent of which as “extreme right-wing”), 28 per cent as “centrist” and 16 per cent as “left-wing”.