Israeli Public Veers Left
It’s no wonder Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not even try to hide his disappointment at Hassan Rouhani’s victory in Iran’s presidential elections.
The replacement of “the modern-day Hitler,” as he had described [outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad on one of his visits to the United States (2008), with a leader considered moderate and pragmatic, has shuffled his deck of “advocacy” cards and left him without a joker. The prime minister will be hard pressed from now on to frighten the Israeli public with “a second Holocaust” and thus deflect its attention from the Palestinian problem.
And apropos the Palestinian issue, Netanyahu has another reason to be disappointed. The annual public opinion poll commissioned by Ariel University in the settlement-turned-city of Ariel, was headlined: “The Israeli public is becoming more pragmatic and veering to the left.” The poll, conducted by polling agency Maagar Mochot in the second half of May among a sampling of the adult Jewish population living within the Green Line, indicates that the right wing has lost its majority.
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The following findings indicate a clear trend of decline in support for the “settlement enterprise” and in the prestige of the settlers:
•A significant drop (of 9%) among those who view the settlements as the country’s “defensive wall” and a drop of 15% in the number of those who regard the settlers as “the true Zionists.”
• A highly significant rise (11%) in the percentage of Israelis who regard the settlers as “blackmailers” [squeezing money from the national budget] — about 25% of those polled — and an increase of 9% in those who see them as an obstacle to peace, but a paltry increase (1%) in those who see them as the source of the conflict with the Palestinians (about a third of those polled).
•A significant drop (from 29% to 13%) in support for a public campaign against compromise with the Palestinians.
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The explanations for this phenomenon are two-fold. First of all, the public finally understands the connection between its economic plight and the continued nurturing of the settlements and attendant handling of the conflict with the Palestinians. The public probably understands that the “equal burden” spin of the last election campaign, according to which the root of all evil lies in the economic-social arena, is self-delusion and dangerous repression.
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If the prime minister dares adopt the plan proposed by US Secretary of State John Kerry for resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, “Bogie” will not hesitate to do to Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] what Bibi himself did to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 18 years ago, following the signing of the Oslo Accord (in a procession held in Netanyahu’s presence in the city of Raanana, several weeks before Rabin’s assassination, protesters carried a coffin inscribed with the words, “Rabin is killing Zionism”).
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In the coming days, Netanyahu will have to choose between a daring decision to climb the mountain and adopt Kerry’s plan, which is based on the Arab Initiative, and spinning his wheels on the slippery slope of the conflict. An opinion poll commissioned by the NGO ''Yisrael Yozemet'' and published by Al-Monitor several weeks ago showed that if Netanyahu picks the first option, seven out of 10 Israelis (69%) will support him. The surprising poll commissioned by the University of Ariel confirms that Israel is no longer the land of the right-wing.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/06/a-new-poll-israelis-veering-left.html#ixzz2We1gDj3g