Israelis Support Gaza Operation En Masse
The Jerusalem Post reports that despite heavy criticism from the international community, 94% of Israelis support operation Cast Lead which was launched almost three weeks ago, and which has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 Palestinians. It is for the first time in Israel’s history that a war is supported by such a large part of the population.
That is, Israeli Jews support the war. Arab Israelis, who make up 20% of the country’s population, oppose the war in the strongest way possible. A total of 85% of Israeli Arabs oppose the operation, the survey finds, while 80% say Israel should sign a cease-fire agreement even if it does not entail the freeing of Gilad Schalit. Interesting about these stats is that 80% of Jewish Israelis disagree say the exact opposite on the issue of Schalit, and that 94% support the operation.
The war is supported by Israeli Jews, which means that both Labor and Kadima may do better than expected in next month’s parliamentary elections, but there is a clear gap between Jewish and Arab (read: Muslim) Israelis. This gap was always significant, but has likely increased in size during the last few weeks. One wonders what this will mean for the relationship between these two groups; who, together, form the Israeli people.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
