The international and regional debate regarding the Goldstone Report has
apparently drawn the attention of the Israeli Jewish public while attracting that of the Israeli Arab public much less, a survey published by the War and Peace Index Sunday showed.
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Sixty-one percent of Jewish-Israeli respondents—compared to only 22% of the Arabs—answered that they know what the report’s main conclusion is. Among the Jewish interviewees who responded that they are aware of the report’s main conclusion, there was almost total unanimity (93.5%), that the report was biased against the IDF.
According to the poll, 79% of Israel's Jews oppose the Goldstone Report’s claim that during Operation Cast Lead the IDF committed war crimes. Not surprisingly, in the Arab public only 5% opposed this claim of the commission.
Unlike the consensus regarding the content of the report, the poll showed the Jewish public is divided on whether the Israeli government’s decision not to cooperate with the Goldstone Commission was justified or unjustified: 46% think the decision was justified, 20% believe that it was unjustified, apparently believing that cooperation with the commission could have softened its harsh conclusions against the IDF, and 34% do not know.
As for the videotape of captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit that Hamas transferred to Israel, the poll's findings reveal that the majority of the Jewish public (50%) thinks the transfer neither increases nor decreases the chances of his release, though 37% think it increases them and 4% that it decreases them. In the Arab public the prevailing opinion, 49%, is more optimistic—that the transfer of the video raises the chances of his release. Twelve percent of the Arab interviewees think it decreases them, and about one-fourth do not think the transfer affects the chances of a release one way or the other.
Regarding the political issue standing at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, namely, support or opposition to a peace agreement based on the principle of “two states for two peoples,” here too it appears that the distribution of views among the Jewish public is quite clear: The majority, about two-thirds (64%), favor the principle compared to a third who oppose it.
At the same time, it appears that a majority of the Jewish public (60%), think continued building in the settlements does not reduce the chances of reaching the two-state solution and is not concerned that continued building will lead in practice to a binational state, with only one-third concerned about such an outcome.
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