Enquete toont wantrouwen tussen Israeli's en Arabieren in Israel

Onderstaande enquete toont veel wantrouwen en zelfs vijandigheid tussen de Israelisch-Arabische bevolking en de Joodse Israeli's. Meer dan een kwart van de Israelische Arabieren ontkent de Holocaust. Meer dan 77% van de Israelische Arabieren noemt Zionisme, de nationale beweging van de Joden, racistisch, en 62% is bang dat Israel hun gemeenschappen tegen hun zin bij een toekomstige staat zal voegen, of hun massaal zal verdrijven. Terwijl bijna 90% Israels militaire operaties in Libanon als oorlogsmisdaden bestempelt, veroordeelt minder dan de helft de raketaanvallen van Hezbollah op Noord-Israel. Dit is des te opmerkelijker, omdat bij deze aanvallen vele Arabieren werden getroffen. Van hun kant vreest 68% van de Joodse Israeli's onrust en rellen onder hun Arabische medeburgers, en 63% geeft aan geen Arabische steden te bezoeken.  

 
'28% of Israel's Arabs deny Holocaust'

More than a quarter of Israel's Arab citizens believe the
Holocaust never happened, and nearly two thirds of Israeli Jews
avoid entering Arab towns, a poll by an Israeli university showed
Sunday, demonstrating the poor state of relations between the two
communities.

The poll, conducted by Sami Smoocha, a prominent sociologist at
the University of Haifa, showed a wide gap of mistrust, anger and
fear between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens.

In its most dramatic finding, the poll showed that 28 percent of
Israeli Arabs did not believe the Holocaust happened, and that
among high school and college graduates the figure was even
higher - 33 percent.

According to Smoocha's analysis, radicals in the Arab world
believe the Holocaust to be a political event, and many feel that
by denying it they are expressing opposition to Israel.

Among Israeli Jews, 63 percent said they avoid entering Arab
towns and cities, and 68 percent fear the possibility of civil
unrest among Israeli Arabs.

Pollsters interviewed 721 Arabs and 702 Jews. The margin of error
was 3.7 percentage points.

Asked about the war with Hizbullah guerrillas in Lebanon last
summer, nearly half of the Israeli Arabs polled - 48 percent -
said they believed that Hizbullah's rocket attacks on northern
Israel during that war were justified, even though numerous Arabs
were killed and wounded in those attacks.

While 89 percent said they viewed the IDF's bombing of Lebanon as
a war crime, only 44 percent said they saw Hizbullah's attacks on
Israel as such. Hizbullah pelted northern Israel with nearly
4,000 rockets.

Half of Israeli Arab respondents said Hizbullah's capture of IDF
reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid
was justified. That incident sparked the 34-day conflict.

In a press release accompanying the poll's publication, Smoocha
expressed surprise at the results.

"One would have expected more pro-Israeli results among Israeli
Arabs due to the uniqueness of the most recent war: a war with no
involvement of the Palestinians, a war in which the lives and
belongings of Israelis were endangered, a war against an Islamic
fundamentalist group that most of them don't support," Smoocha said.

Israeli-Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL) said he doubted some of the
findings.

Tibi said he "cannot explain" the numbers indicating support for
Hizbullah, but noted that "usually there is no empathy for the
aggressor," which Tibi said was Israel.

Tibi also said he doubted that the statistics on Holocaust denial
"reflect the situation in the Arab elite." Tibi called the
Holocaust "the worst crime ever against humanity" and said
Holocaust denial is "immoral."

But some of the sentiments, he said, might stem from
"reservations about the way the Holocaust is used as a political
tool" by Israel, said Tibi.

The poll also found that Israeli Arabs had fears about their
future in Israel: 62 percent worry that Israel could transfer
their communities to the jurisdiction of a future Palestinian
state, an idea supported by one of the parties in Israel's
current governing coalition. Sixty percent said they are
concerned about a possible mass expulsion.

Among the Arab respondents, 76 percent described Zionism as racist.

But more than two thirds said they would be content to live in
the Jewish state, if it existed alongside a Palestinian state in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip.