60% of Israelis Think the New Nation-State Law Should Have Included ‘Equality'

The majority of the public (60%) think the law should have included equality.

Illustration | Flash 90

The monthly Peace Index of the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, published today (Tuesday), finds that: only 52% of Jewish Israelis think it was important to pass the Nation-State law at this time; additionally, the majority of the public (60%) think the law should have included equality, 51% of Israeli Jews support changing Arabic’s status from an official language of the state of Israel to a language with special status, while 40% of Israeli Jews oppose this. Against the background of the Druze’s protests it is interesting to note that 61% of Israeli Jews do not think the law will impact the Druze community’s commitment to the state of Israel, and only 25% assert the opposite. As for the clause on Israel’s commitment to the diaspora, only 33% of Israeli Jews think that the law expresses condescension towards Diaspora Jewry.

The LGBTQ community's protest over the surrogacy law, and the recent arrest of a conservative rabbi raise fundamental questions regarding the nature of marriage in Israel:

The large majority of Israeli Jews (64%) support civil marriage: On the right 52% support it, in the center 80%, and on the left 96%. When the answer was divided by respondents’ religious status, it yielded the following distribution of groups that support civil marriage: secular 94%, nonreligious traditional 62%, religious traditional 48%, religious 14%, ultra-Orthodox 9%. 75% of Israeli Arabs oppose the possibility of civil marriage for all.

Legal equality for same-sex couples: 68% of Israeli Jews support granting same-sex couples equal rights to those of other couples. In addition, 69% of Israeli Jews support allowing same-sex couples to adopt children in Israel, while 80% of Israeli Arabs oppose this.

Religious marriages by Reform or Conservative rabbis: 59% of Israeli Jews think Israel should recognize religious marriages conducted by Reform or Conservative rabbis, while 35% oppose this. When the question was divided by religious status, it revealed the following distribution of groups that support marriages conducted by Reform or Conservative rabbis: secular 88%, nonreligious traditional 62%, religious traditional 40%, religious 9%, ultra-Orthodox 2%.

The survey conducted on July 24-26, 2018, 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%.

To read the full Peace Index.

Illustration | Flash 90