Jewish-Arab cities' residents get along but hesitant on kids playing together

Over 2,100 residents from seven mixed cities, Haifa, Acre, Lod, Ramle, Jaffa, Nof Hagalil, and Maalot Tarshiha were interviewed in a survey by the Abraham Initiatives.

By ROSSELLA TERCATIN
Alia Tunisi adjusts the skullcap of a student, Hand in Hand Arab Jewish bilingual school, Jerusalem, 2014. (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)
Alia Tunisi adjusts the skullcap of a student, Hand in Hand Arab Jewish bilingual school, Jerusalem, 2014.
(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)
Eight out of ten Jewish residents of mixed cities and nine out of ten Arab residents describe their relationship with each other as good or very good, but only a minority strongly agree with the idea of letting their children playing with a child from the other sector, a survey by the Abraham Initiatives, whose results were published on Monday, found.
Over 2,100 residents from seven mixed cities, including Haifa, Acre, Lod, Ramle, Jaffa, Nof Hagalil, and Maalot Tarshiha were interviewed in two separate phone surveys, 150 of each population group for each city. The percentage does not necessarily reflect the presence of the two groups in the city (for example, in Haifa, Jews make up about 80% of the population). The survey was conducted in November by the Afkar Research Institute, led by Hisham Jubran.
The Abraham Initiatives describes itself as an organization which "strives to fulfill the promise of full and equal citizenship and complete equality of social and political rights for Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens, as embodied in Israel's Declaration of Independence."
According to the findings, 31% of the Jewish interviewees strongly agreed with the saying: "I allow my children to play with Arab children," while 26% disagreed or strongly disagreed. Among Arabs respondents, 41% strongly agreed with the equivalent statement ("I allow my children to play with Jewish children"), and only 5% disagreed.
Moreover, 31% of Jews and 22% of Arabs stated that they try to avoid contact with the other group.
The survey clearly showed that the likelihood of people having a warmer attitude toward members of the other group dramatically increased when they had interaction with each other.
For example, 47% of Arab respondents who reported having contact with Jews said they never experienced racism or discrimination by Jews, compared to 31% of those who didn't have contacts.
The majority of both populations agreed or partially agreed with the idea of sending their children to a bi-lingual school (55% of Jewish respondents and 81% of the Arab respondents).
However, only four respondents out of ten said they would support having a joint informal education program for Jews and Arabs.
Many expressed the idea that municipalities are not living up to the expectation of equality for all their residents.
Half of the Jewish respondents and 6 out of ten Arab ones feel that municipalities do not provide equal services to the two sectors.
About 40% of Jews and 51% of Arabs said that the services should be provided in Hebrew and Arabic.
 "The survey exposes an optimistic picture, better than most might think the relations in the mixed cities would be, which enables new cooperation opportunities between Jewish and Arab communities in the mixed cities," Co-Directors of the Abraham Initiatives Amnon Be' eri-Sulitzeanu and Thabet Abu Rass said. 
"There is a clear expectation from the municipalities to promote cooperation, to integrate more Arabs into the municipalities and to provide services in both languages. We call for the establishment of bilingual schools in all the cities involved," they added.


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