A large majority of the Jewish public in Israel oppose so-called “price-tag”
actions against Palestinians and the IDF, a poll released Thursday by the Evens
Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the
Israel Democracy Institute revealed.
Price-tag attacks refer to
retaliatory acts by right-wing activists against Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and
IDF soldiers and army property, as defined by the survey.
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months, graffiti reading “price tag,” along with derogatory references to
Muhammad has been spraypainted at sites where mosques have been torched, Muslim
cemeteries desecrated, IDF vehicles damaged and at the home of a Peace Now
official in Jerusalem.
Most recently, 15 gravestones in the Mamilla
cemetery next to the site of the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance were
spray-painted with graffiti. The headstones bore red paint saying “Death to
Arabs” and the name of the Givat Assaf outpost, which is scheduled for
demolition.
Eighty-eight percent of the Jewish public expressed
opposition to so-called “price-tag” acts against Palestinians and an even
greater majority of 93.5% oppose actions carried out against the IDF, the survey
said.
Nine percent of respondents expressed support for the
attacks.
Asked whether the state’s response to “price-tag” attacks is
appropriate, the responses were less homogeneous.
Among Jewish
respondents, 38% said they saw the authorities’ response to the attacks as
appropriate, while 38% said the state reaction was “too mild” and 13% said it
was “too harsh.”
Divided along religious lines, haredi respondents were
most likely to view the state’s response to “price-tag” attacks as too harsh.
Forty-nine percent of the haredi public, according to the survey, believe that
the state reacts too harshly to the attacks while 33% said the response was
appropriate.
The number of respondents who saw the authorities’ response
as too mild was below one percent.
Among the “religious,” “traditional”
and “secular” respondents, the majority said that the state’s response was
either appropriate or too mild. Fortysix percent of secular respondents said
that authorities were responding too mildly and 34% said the response was
appropriate. In the “traditional” and “religious” public, the majority of those
polled said that the state response was appropriate, but 38% and 31%,
respectively, said that the response was too harsh.
Although a number of
arrests have been made in connection to “price-tag” attacks in recent months,
only three indictments have been issued. Earlier this week, two 18-year-olds and
one minor were indicted in connection to attacks that occurred in March. Police
asked for their remand to be extended, but on Monday night the court released
the suspects on bail.
The survey also probed the public’s view of the
prisoner exchange deal that freed IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in exchange for over
1,000 Palestinian prisoners last month, finding that a large majority (78%) of
both the Jewish and Arab public thought the deal was the “right” thing to
do.
Asked whether the deal weakened Israel and harmed its deterrence, 58%
of the general public disagreed while 38.8% said it did.
Those
self-identifying as on the right of the political map were more likely to
respond that the deal harmed Israel and its deterrence (47%) while only 33% of
those identifying in the center of the political map and 20% of those on the
left responded with the same answer.
The Israeli public’s views on the
current state of the summer’s social protest movement were also explored in the
survey, showing that a large majority of the public (75.7%) supports the
continuation of the movement.
However, the respondents were more split
when it came to gauging the success of the protests. Over 51% of the general
public said that the movement had not succeeded in scoring significant
achievements so far while 42.3% said it had not. That trend does not apply to
the Arab sector, however, in which 48.9% of respondents said they believe
significant achievements have been made compared to only 41.1% of Jewish
respondents who gave the same answer.
JTA contributed to this report.