מרכז תמי שטינמץ למחקרי שלום התכנית לחקר סכסוכים ויישובם ע"ש אוונס
The Evens Program in Mediation The TamiSteinmetzCenter
and Conflict Resolution for Peace Research
War and Peace Index - October 2008
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann
Similar to the citizens of the United States who voted in large numbers for Barack Obama last week and made him president, the majority of the Israeli Jewish public opined on the eve of the elections, though at a lower magnitude—36%—that Obama would be a better president for the United States than his rival John McCain—29% (the rest did not have a clear opinion on the matter). However, when it comes to Israel’s interests, the Jewish public clearly preferred McCain—43%—over Obama at 23%, though it should be noted that over the past few months the peace indexes showed that McCain’s lead was narrowing. (It may also be worth noting that for the Israeli Arab public the picture is different: the prevailing view is that Obama is preferable in terms of both American and Israeli interests.)
The Israeli public’s tendency to prefer McCain over Obama should not be surprising since McCain’s status as representative of the American Right accords more with the Jewish public’s positions, which clearly tend rightward. To the question of where you would locate yourself on issues of foreign and defense policy, 43% of the interviewees defined themselves as Right, 30% as Center, and only 15% as Left. A cross-section of this segmentation with the segmentation on preferring Obama or McCain in terms of Israeli interests shows a close link between the two questions. Among those defining themselves as Right, the preferences for McCain or Obama stand, respectively, at 51% and 16%; among those in the Center, at 42% and 27%; and for the Left at 37% and 32% (in each of the three groups the rate of “don’t know” comes to about one-third). At the same time, the fact that even the left-wingers prefer McCain over Obama apparently means that fears of Obama formulating a policy harmful to Israel’s interests cuts across the camps, though at different magnitudes.
Which candidate for president of the United States, Obama or McCain, is better for Israel?
And on the domestic political level, the monthly survey shows that in the public debate over whether the transition government headed by Ehud Olmert has or does not have a mandate to continue the negotiations with Syria, the Jewish public takes a clear-cut position: two-thirds say there is no such mandate and the contacts should stop, while one-fourth say it is desirable for the Olmert government to continue the negotiations so as not to harm the momentum of the contacts. We checked the connection between voting in the most recent elections and positions on this question and found that, with the exception of Meretz voters, among whom a majority favors continuing the contacts with Syria, and Pensioners Party voters who are evenly split between the two positions, among voters for all the other parties the rate of those who say the transition government has no mandate to continue the negotiations is clearly higher than the rate of those who want the government to continue the contacts with Syria out of fear that stopping them now will mean a loss of momentum.
And in a similar context of Olmert’s fall and its far-reaching political implications, we checked the Israeli public’s position on whether or not it is desirable, in a situation where there are suspicions against a senior public figure such as a prime minister, that the investigation and legal process against him be postponed until he steps down so as not to upset the political system and so he can keep concentrating on his job, as is done, for instance, in France. The positions on this issue are more divided than on the previous one, but still a clear majority of 54% opposes postponing the investigations and legal process compared to 40% who favor it (the rest have no clear opinion). A segmentation by voting for the Knesset shows that this division of opinions is common to the voters for all the parties except Shas and Torah Judaism; these voters prefer that the legal process be postponed until the public figure steps down.
And there’s more in the context of Olmert’s upcoming exit from the political arena and its consequences. We asked whether Livni was right or wrong when, in the framework of her failed coalition negotiations aimed at avoiding new elections, she turned down Shas’s demand that she promise not to discuss the Jerusalem question in the negotiations with the Palestinians. A majority—50%—think Livni was right to turn it down compared to 33% who think she made a mistake (17% have no clear position on the matter). Note that among voters for the Right and the religious parties—Shas, Likud, National Religious Party/National Union, and Torah Judaism—the majority thinks Livni erred in her decision. As for the majority who think she was right, it helps to make a segmentation of the entire public’s positions on what motivated Shas to demand such a promise from Livni. It turns out that a minority—25%—thinks Shas’s decision stemmed from a genuine concern that Jerusalem must remain united forever, while the majority—57%—says this was just an excuse not to join Livni’s coalition. (Among Shas and Torah Judaism voters, a majority considers that Shas’s genuine concern over Jerusalem’s unity is what led the party to demand the promise from Livni.)
And as for the coming elections, whether out of a desire to “look good” to the interviewers or out of a genuine intention, possibly under the influence of the reports from the United States about an expected high voter turnout, a huge majority—84%—answered this time that they plan to go and vote in February. A majority of the interviewees—49%—claim that the main motivation for choosing one party or another is its ideological platform, and only a minority—26%—report that the main factor is who leads the party (15% attribute equal importance to the two factors and the rest have no clear opinion on the matter).
What will be important to you when you think about which party to vote for?
As for what matters most when deciding which party to vote for, the highest rate—47%—of interviewees said the party’s position on security and peace issues is what’s most important for them, 23% said it was the party’s position on social and educational issues, and only 13% said it was the party’s stance on the economy that would mainly determine their vote next February. Note that this scale of priorities reflects a return to the traditional situation where foreign and defense issues were the key concern for Israeli voters. This contrasts with measurements we made in recent years showing that social and economic issues were moving to the top of the scale. Particularly striking is the order of priorities reflected in the answers to this question given the recent economic instability; one would expect that instability, combined with the fact there have been no recent dramatic events in the security and peace sphere, to have enhanced the importance of the parties’ positions on economic issues.
Given the importance attributed both to ideological platform and issues of peace and security, we checked whether the public makes distinctions between the platforms of the three large parties. It turns out the distinction is between Likud on the one hand and Kadima and Labor on the other. The majority—59%—sees no significant differences on these issues between the Labor and Kadima platforms. However, the majority sees clear differences in this regard between the Labor and Likud (63.5%) and Kadima and Likud (56%) platforms.
Indices:
Negotiation index: General Sample: 49.3; Jewish sample: 45.5
Syria Index: General Sample: 35.0; Jewish sample: 28.6
The War and Peace Index is funded by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on 3-5 November and included 598 interviewees who represent the adult population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size is 4.5%.
For the survey data see:
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