Poll: Most Israeli Jews believe Arab citizens should have no say in foreign policy

[azurnoir]

Approximately 86 percent of Israeli Jews believe any final Knesset decision regarding the country's future political arrangement must be approved by a Jewish majority, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Israel Democratic Institute.

More than 62 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents also said that as long as conflict with the Palestinians continued, the state should not take into account Israeli Arab opinions regarding foreign policy.


The study also found that 53 percent of Israeli Jews believe the state has the right to encourage Arab citizens to emigrate, while 55 percent said Jewish cities should receive more government resources than Arab communities.

<snip>

Israeli Arab respondents expressed less tolerance for foreign neighbors; 70 percent of whom said they would rather not live beside a homosexual couple, while 67 percent said they would rather not live next to Haredi families.

The study revealed, however, that 48 percent of Israeli Arab were tolerant of living beside foreign workers.


http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/poll-most-israeli-jews-believe-arab-citizens-should-have-no-say-in-foreign-policy-1.327972

[aranthus]

1. Most Israeli Jews believe that Israeli Arabs are hostile to the state.

I am not saying that they are right or wrong in that belief, but if I believed that about a group, I wouldn't want them running foreign policy or security either. Nor would you or any other responsible person.

[azurnoir]

2. yep some felt that way about Obama and JFK too

guess we can't blame them either huh?

[aranthus]

7. That is such a false comparison.

First, who has said that JFK was hostile to the existance of the US. I have never heard of such a thing. Who has said that Obama was hostile to the existance of the US? Maybe some nut, but hardly anyone of any substance. Second, even if some nutjobs believed it, there isn't a shred of evidence to support that belief. It's not so clear cut when you look at Israeli Arabs.

[Violet_Crumble]

8. No, it's not at all. You said 'hostile to the state' in the post that was replied to...

Yet now you've changed it to something different entirely...

[aranthus]

10. I thought it was understood that that was what "hostile to the state" meant.

The conflict has always been about Arab hostility to the existence of a Jewish state. Israel is a Jewish state. To be hostile to Israel is to be hostile to it as a Jewish state. Do you really think that Arabs are hostile to Israel simply because it's called Israel or that Netanyahu is the Prime Minister, or because they don't like the specific details of Israeli parliamentary democracy? It's the Jewish nature of the state that is at issue, and always has been.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Why? They don't mean the same thing at all...

Someone can be hostile to a state without being hostile to its existance. I know quite a few people who are hostile to the US, but have no problem with it existing....

I strongly suspect Arab-Israelis would feel hostile to Israel because they've always been treated like shit. I'd feel exactly the same way myself if it was me...

[aranthus]

12. In this context , it's what is meant.

I really thought that was clear from the Israel/Palestine issue. That's what the conflict is about, and always has been. I have no doubt that Arab Israelis feel left out, and mis-treated. I don't think that those are the feelings that the Jews are afraid of. I think that they are afraid that Arab Israelis would just as soon want the Jews gone, and have the Arabs ruling over all of Palestine. That belief may not be accurate, but its genesis is understandable. That being said, I do want to make clear that the belief itself is not enough to exclude Arabs from full participation in Israeli society. I wasn't attempting to justify denying Israeli Arabs their civil rights. Unless there is evidence of something more than the disaffection of a minority, you don't get to exclude them.

[Ken Burch]

3. Most Israeli Arabs feel the state is hostile to THEM.

It wouldn't be that hard to change that. All that would have to be done would be to end all discrimination against them and give them full equality with the majority of the population. After 1948, almost all Israeli Arabs accepted the state and would have lived in peace with it. They were never given the chance. They were kept, with no justification, under ethnically specific martial law for the first sixteen years of Israel's existence and then still treated as outsiders after the official martial law ended.

If you keep telling a people they're not welcome where they live, you can expect that they'll resent it. Simple logic.

And, if Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens, they should have just as much right to have a say in the foreign policy of the country in which they live as any OTHER Israeli citizens do. It's time for the State of Israel to walk the walk on the Camera/Flame myths about how the Arab minority is treated in that country. Only when that state does that will it have ANY right to ask Palestinians to accept any settlements in the West Bank at all.

[azurnoir]

6. Perhaps that is the point in doing so n/t

[LeftishBrit]

5. A self-fulfilling belief in such a case

If people are deliberately excluded from their state's decision-making processes, this is likely at least to reduce their commitment to their state.

Also: in a democracy, one has to accept the right of *all* citizens to be involved in decision-making. I might personally prefer it if right-wingers were not involved in decision-making for my country, as I feel that they are hostile to the type of state that *I* consider as mine. (I would feel this even more strongly if I lived in America, with regard to the 'teabaggers' who appear fundamentally hostile to any government.) I am sure that right-wingers feel exactly the same way about left-wingers. But democracy requires the consultation of all citizens, even those whose views one may consider abhorrent or dangerous.

[aranthus]

9. It's more complicated than that.

What came first? Arab hostility to a Jewish state or the treatment of the Arabs by that state? It was Arab hostility that came first, didn't it? Even before the state was created? Now layer on top of that the way that Israel treats its Arab citizens, in part because the Jews don't fully trust them. That gives the Arabs a reason to dislike the state. Hostility breeds suspicion, generating an oppressive reaction, which gives birth to more hostility.

By the way, you may be correct about the way that Leftists feel about Conservatives, but I don't think that the opposite is true, at least not among Conservatives that I know, unless you are talking about the extreme Left. Republicans, for instance, don't think that Democrats are hostile to the existence of the US.

[whosinpower]

4. I am confused

86 percent of Israeli's feel that any change to the political arrangement approved by the knesset must be approved by a jewish majority.....so that means that the Arab Israeli minority would not even be allowed to participate in the vote - because it would not count.....?

And, 62 percent of Israeli citizens would rather be deaf to the Arab perspective than at listen to what they have to say - as long as there is an ongoing conflict. And, even if they are elected members of the knesset.....they should just shut the F______ up when it comes to foreign policy.