JNF land, for Jews only?
Poll: 81% of Israelis want JNF land for Jews only
Poll shows overwhelming support for JNF policy of selling land to Jews only; strongest support among National Union-NRP, Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism and Labor Party voters
Eighty-one percent of Israelis support the Jewish National Fund's long held policy of selling land only to Jews, according to a poll released Thursday. Only 10% oppose the policy while 9% are undecided or refused to answer.
Mitchell Barak, managing-director of the KEEVOON Research and Strategy company that conducted the survey, said, “This poll shows that when it comes to the actual land of Israel - Israelis are definitely not liberal. It is clear that JNF’s 100-year-old policy of raising money from Diaspora Jewry and selling only to Jews in Israel, is widely supported by all sectors of the Israeli Hebrew-speaking population.”
Agreement
Jewish National Fund tells court it will sell land to Jews and Arabs on condition that Israel Land Authority compensates it for land sold to non-Jews
The most interesting demographic was based on respondent’s vote for the 2006 Knesset election. A unanimous 100% of National Union-NRP voters support JNF’s policy followed closely by 97% of Agudat Yisrael voters, 93% of Yisrael Beitenu voters, and 89% of Labor voters. Eighty-five percent of Likud voters and 78% of Kadima voters expressed support of JNF’s policy.
Surprisingly, Shas voters are the weakest supporters of the policy among the major parties with only 77% supporting it. Seventy-six percent of those who voted for the Pensioners party support JNF’s policy as well. Meretz voters are not very supportive at all and expressed the highest levels of opposition – only 45% of them support the policy while 44% oppose it.
While there is still strong support among all of the different religious sectors of the population, it is interesting to note the trend that emerges. Ninety-two percent of modern Orthodox national religious support the JNF policy.
Eighty-seven percent of haredim support it as well, followed by 82% of traditional Israelis and 76% of secular ones. This reflects the trend in the party affiliation demographic with the exception of Shas voters. Interestingly, their level of support is similar to that of secular Israelis.
Israelis also seem to have differing views based on where they live. Ninety-one percent of Jerusalem residents support JNF’s policy followed by 84% of Northern residents, 82% of Sharon residents, 81% of those who live in the South, and 75% of Israelis who live in the Gush Dan area.
The poll was a telephone survey of 500 Jewish Israelis and was conducted on October 8-9, 2007. It has a margin of error of about 4.5%
