Survey: Most Israelis oppose establishing Palestinian State

Some 64 per cent of Israelis are less willing to support a full withdrawal from the occupied West Bank as part of a settlement agreement to establish a Palestinian State, according to a new poll released yesterday by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. Israelis are currently more sceptical than ever that the Palestinians will take the steps necessary to strike a peace accord with the Jewish state.

The poll showed that only ten per cent of Israelis agree on handing over the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the Palestinian sovereignty, while 83 per cent oppose the proposal.

“Seventy-nine per cent say it is important to retain a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, while 15 per cent say it is not important,” according to the poll results.

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As 17 per cent of the Jewish population believe that Israel should agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, 77 per cent said it should not.

On the confederation between a future Palestinian state and Jordan, 48 per cent favoured the idea, while 33 per cent were opposed.

In a major shift in the Israeli public opinion, the majority polled expressed reluctance to agree with the parameters put forward by former US President Bill Clinton during his last days in office. Support for the parameters has dropped from 55 per cent in 2005 to 29 per cent today.

Right-wing politics

“There has been a gradual decrease of [Jewish] Israeli willingness to agree to a withdrawal from the West Bank as part of a peace agreement – from 60 per cent in 2005 to 36 per cent in 2017,” according to the results. “There has also been a decline in support for the Clinton Parameters from 55 per cent in 2005 to 29 per cent in 2017.”

Under those parameters, a demilitarised Palestinian state would be established in the West Bank, Jerusalem would be divided as the capital of both nations, and Al-Aqsa Mosque would fall under the sovereignty of Palestinian hands with Israel retaining control of the Western Wall.

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In an interview with Quds Press yesterday, the Director-General of the Ministry of Tourism in the city of Jericho, Iyad Hamdan, said that the survey indicates the Jewish society’s extremism as well as an end to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

He added that the continuous delay in the settlement process from the Israeli side, the absence of Arab countries’ pressure and intervention, right-wing Israeli’s control over parliament, the continuation of the Israeli annexation activities of Palestinian-owned lands, and the  Judaisation of occupied Jerusalem, have led to the emergence of an extremist Jewish society.

“Israeli society will become more radical in the future and a stronger supporter of the Israeli right-wing.”

The survey was based on a sample of 521 Jewish Israeli adults. It has shown a reported maximum sampling error of 4.4 per cent.

According to a survey released in February, quoted by the Times of Israel, the majority of Jewish Israelis oppose plans, proposed by right-wing politicians, to annex large parts of the West Bank.