Israelis overwhelmingly skeptical about Trump peace plan
The poll found that the public backs negotiating with the Palestinians - 58% are either strongly or moderately in favor - but a small percentage believe the talks will succeed, just 17.8%.
By GIL HOFFMANUpdated: JULY 3, 2018 04:57U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 5, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque(photo credit: REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE)
Nearly three-quarters of Israelis believe the unreleased Middle East diplomatic plan of US President Donald Trump is doomed to failure, according to the monthly Peace Index poll of the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University.The poll, published Monday, found 73.8% of the general public believes there are low or very low chances that Trump’s plan could succeed, while 11.2% said the chances were “moderately high” and just 4.4% said very high. The percentage saying they did not know the details of the unpublished plan or declined to answer was only 10.6%.Asked to what extent Israel’s interests were important to Trump, 77.3% of the general public said they were either moderately important or very important to the US president.Interestingly, Arab respondents were more than four times as likely as Jewish respondents to say Israel’s interests were “very important” to Trump.Regarding the interests of Palestinians, 27% of Jews said they were moderately important to Trump and only 2.6% said they were very important to him. Among Arab respondents, only 3.5% said the interests of the Palestinians were moderately important or very important to Trump.The Peace Index poll has asked Israelis whether they support peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and whether such talks will lead to peace every month for more than 25 years.As usual, this month’s poll found that the public backs negotiating with the Palestinians – 58% are either strongly or moderately in favor – but a small percentage believe the talks will succeed, just 17.8%.When asked about recent attacks from Gaza of incendiary kites, 83% of Israeli Jews think the IDF should shoot directly at terror kite assailants, and 57% think the IDF is doing a good job in dealing with Palestinian attacks on the Gaza border. On the other hand 87% of Israeli Arabs think the IDF must not shoot directly at terror kite assailants, and 79% of Israeli Arabs think both the IDF and the government are failing to deal with the situation.The survey was conducted on June 26-28. It included 600 respondents, who constitute a representative national sample of the adult population of Israel aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1% at a confidence level of 95%.
