Coronavirus crisis improved Jewish-Arab relations - new survey

However, relations between the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community and the rest of Israeli society appear to have been damaged.

MAY 10, 2020 17:20

A Jewish Magen David Adom volunteer stands next to a Muslim MDA volunteer. (photo credit: MOHAMD ALNBARE/MDA SPOKESPERSON) — A Jewish Magen David Adom volunteer stands next to a Muslim MDA volunteer.

(photo credit: MOHAMD ALNBARE/MDA SPOKESPERSON)

The coronavirus crisis helped improve relations between Jews and Arabs, according to a survey released Sunday by the Israel Democracy Institute. However, relations between the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community and the rest of Israeli society appear to have been damaged.

The majority of the general public (57%) believes that Jewish-Arab relations have improved, the poll found. When broken down by nationality, Arabs expressed even greater improvement than Jews – 65% versus 57%, respectively.

However, when it comes to relations between the ultra-Orthodox and the rest of society, a different picture emerges. Some 62% of the general public – 57% of Arabs and 63% of Jews – say that the coronavirus crisis moderately or even greatly damaged this relationship.

Over the last few months, some haredi neighborhoods were found to have the highest infection rates, starting with Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, but including Elad, Modi’in Illit and others. Currently, both Bnei Brak and Jerusalem have a less than 1% infection rate, according to the Health Ministry.

Another area of improved relations appears to be between the public and the Police, according to the IDI. The poll showed a marked improvement (51%) as a result of coronavirus. Among Jews, 52.5% think so, among Arabs 45%.

Segmentation by Jewish political camps indicates that only 37% of the Left think the relationship improved, as compared to 56.5% of the Center and 54% of the Right.

However, public sentiment is that relations between the government and the public were harmed by the coronavirus crisis, despite the IDI poll showing that 63.2% of the public feels the government did a good job in handling the medical aspects of the crisis.

Some 60% of the general public believes relations were damaged. The proportion of Jews who believe the relationship has been damaged exceeds the rate of Arabs – 52.5% versus 45%, respectively.

A release by IDI said that the explanation for the discrepancy could be that from the outset, the assessment of relations with the government in the Arab public was worse and therefore the damage assessed was slightly smaller. Segmentation by political camp showed that the damage was seen as most acute by the Left at 87%.

The survey, conducted by the Midgam Institute on behalf of IDI, interviewed 769 men and women aged 18 and older between April 30 to May 3. The margin of error is +/- 3.7%.

A separate poll conducted by Mano Geva for “Meet the Press” on Saturday showed that 74% of the public thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handled the health crisis well – 88% of right-wing voters and 58% of center-left voters.

In addition, the Geva survey revealed that 72% felt that Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov did a good or very good job.

However, Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman was voted less favorably. Some 67% of respondents said he did not perform well.