Israelis Think Clinton Will Put Pressure on Them, Support Her Nonetheless

A majority of the Israeli public (43%) thinks it is preferable that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton be elected the next U.S. president (versus 26.5% in favor of Republican candidate Donald Trump). This despite that 63% of the Jewish public thinks Clinton would exert greater pressure on Israel than Trump (8%) to return to the negotiation table with the Palestinians.

The latest Peace Index, published Sunday, Oct. 16, by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, once again gauged the public’s positions on the U.S. presidential candidates. The survey found that a clear majority (55%) of Jewish Israelis believes Clinton will win the U.S. election. Only 25% believes Republican candidate Donald Trump will be elected. The survey was conducted before the publication of the “hot-mic tape.”

(View last month’s statistics>>)

Just completing the Rosh Hashanah New Year holiday, this monthly survey also looked at how the public view’s Israel’s overall situation and what it expects its situation to be in during the year that is just beginning. The Peace Index also examined various aspects of the state funeral of the late president Shimon Peres.

Israel’s Situation: Present and Forecast
The majority of the Jewish public (54%) views Israel’s overall situation as “moderately” or “very” good. Some 37% see it as medium.

When segmented by political camp:

• The Right defines the situation as good or very good (nearly 50%)
• The Center (42%) and Left (38%) define the situation as medium

When segmented by religiosity:

• The majority (58%) of the more religious Jewish public (ultra-Orthodox, national-religious, traditional-religious) assesses the situation positively
• A plurality (42%) of the traditional-non-religious sees the situation as good or very good
• About a third (32%) of secular Israelis see Israel’s situation as positive

Some 63% of the Arab public views Israel’s situation as good or moderately good.

Only 22.5% of Jews believe Israel’s situation will improve this year, while 54% of Arab Israelis believe the situation in Israel will get better. In fact, one-third (32%) of Jewish Israelis says they think in the domain of disputes between different parts of the public, the situation will get worse.

The Funeral of the Late President Peres
Respondents were asked, “Was the participation in Peres’s funeral by the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, despite the harsh criticism leveled at him by some elements on the Palestinian side, a sign of a Palestinian desire to return to negotiations with Israel?”

A small minority (6%) of Jewish Israelis said they were “sure” it was a sign to return to negotiations, while the majority (64%) of Jewish Israelis said they “think” or are “sure” that it was not. In contrast, the majority of the Arab public (57%) said they think or are sure it was.

All agreed that the decision by the heads of the Joint Arab List to decline participation in Peres’ funeral was politically unwise: 81% of the Jewish public thinks the abstention was unwise and 77.5% says the Joint List leaders’ avoidance of participating in the funeral was also unjustified. Similarly, 49% among the Arab interviewees says the abstention was an unwise political move and 42.5% thought the decision had no basic justification.

The Peace Index is a project of the Evens Program for Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University and the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research of the Israel Democracy Institute. This month's survey was conducted by telephone on October 5-9, 2016, by the Midgam Research Institute. The survey included 600 respondents, who constitute a representative national sample of the adult population aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1% at a confidence level of 95%.

View the full index: http://www.peaceindex.org/english