Poll: 87% of Israelis do not think peace deal will be made with Palestine

A staggering 87 per cent of Israelis do not believe a peace agreement will be signed with Palestine in the next five years, a new survey has found.

The Israel Democracy Institute’s (IDI) Voice Index for September also revealed that only seven  per cent of the Palestinian citizens of Israel believe the peace deal should be a main priority for authorities.

Combatting the increasing crime rates in Arab cities in Israel ranked as the issue of greatest importance for Arab respondents with 53 per cent of them insisting that this issue should be the central task of the Israeli government in the coming year.

Arabs make up 20 per cent of the population of Israel, they believe Israeli occupation authorities are purposely ignoring rising crime rates in their community. Since the start of 2021, about 100 Arabs have been killed, with protests being held to urge the government to act.

The survey found that among the Israeli public, economic growth is a leading priority. The economic crisis that accompanied the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, led to a significant increase of food insecurity in the country.

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Nearly 25 per cent of Israeli families with children are experiencing food insecurity, data from Israel’s largest anti-poverty NGO revealed last month.

Seeking a peace agreement with Palestinians ranked as the issue they were least concerned about, with only 15.5 per cent of Israelis showing support.

Regarding Israel normalising relations with Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan as part of the Abraham Accords, 14.5 per cent of Jewish respondents and 42 per cent of Arabs believe these agreements are a setback.

“On the question of what should be the governmental order of priorities, we found large gaps between the Jewish and the Arab public. Whereas more than half of the latter chose the fight against crime as the government’s cardinal task in the coming year, and after it stabilizing the economy, in the Jewish public that task comes in only fourth – after stabilizing the economy, fighting COVID-19, and stopping Iran’s nuclear program,” noted the IDI.

Some 51 per cent of Israelis support  an Israeli military attack against Iran while 46 per cent call for an agreement with Iran.

IDI said they interviewed 603 men and women in Hebrew and 153 in Arabic, constituting a representative national sample of the entire adult population of Israel aged 18 and older.