Study: 89% of Arabs believe Israel is a threat to the region

Israel and the US are the greatest threats to the Arab region, its stability and security, a poll by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies revealed yesterday.

The findings of the 2016 Arab Opinion Index revealed that 89 per cent of Arabs agreed Israel is a threat to the stability of the Arab region; 81 per cent agreed that US policies destabilised the region; and 73 per cent regarded Iranian policies as destabilising.

This was in line with a widespread negative view of Israel, with the overwhelming majority – 86 per cent – of Arabs renouncing official recognition of Israel by their home countries.

Results from the 2016 survey also show an overwhelming majority of Arabs oppose Daesh. With 89 per cent saying they have a negative view of the group.

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“Attitudes towards ISIL [Daesh] are not correlated with religiosity… [they] are defined by political considerations, “ the report explained.

The index also showed that 77 per cent of the Arab public agrees that a multi-party democracy was a good form of government for their home countries.

The results are based on face-to-face interviews by 840 researchers conducted with 18,310 individual respondents in 12 Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

Only 2 per cent of the respondents expressed having “very positive” views of Daesh and only 3 per cent expressed views which were “positive to some extent.”