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Most Jews want to expel Palestinians — Pew’s ugly portrait of Israel

Most Israeli Jews want to expel Palestinian citizens of Israel from the country. And overwhelmingly, those Palestinian citizens say that the United States is too supportive of Israel.

This documentation of racism and polarization inside Israel is contained in a new in-depth survey of Israeli attitudes by the Pew Research Center.

This Pew tweet reflects the deeply discriminatory nature of Israeli society. Four out of five Israeli Jews like being on top:

And a vast majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel regard the society as discriminatory.

Here’s the headline that has made Haaretz and the Forward too: the stunner that Israeli Jews want Palestinians in their midst to get out of the state, by 48 to 46.

Israeli Jews are divided on the question of whether Arabs should be allowed to live in the Jewish state. The survey asked Jews whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” Roughly half of Israeli Jews strongly agree (21%) or agree (27%), while a similar share disagree (29%) or strongly disagree (17%).

And these attitudes are most strongly embedded among religious people. Though more than a third of seculars also want to expel Arabs:

Datiim [religious] are especially likely to favor the expulsion of Arabs. Roughly seven-in-ten (71%) say Arabs should be transferred.

Hilonim [seculars] lean in the other direction: Most (58%) disagree and say Arabs should not be expelled from Israel, including 25% who strongly disagree. But even among these self-described secular Israeli Jews, about one-third (36%) favor the expulsion of Arabs from the country.

 

Expulsion of Arabs, Pew breakdown
Expulsion of Arabs, Pew breakdown

The data on intermarriage reflect this racism. 97 percent of Jews don’t want a child to marry a Muslim, 89 percent are against a marriage to a Christian. Muslim and Christians are also intolerant of such matches, but by a lesser number.

Intermarriage data
Intermarriage data

Of course American Jews are very different:

Here is impressive evidence of the fact that the settlements are now thought to be at the heart of Israeli society, as Weiss reported in January:

Stark change in Israeli Jewish view of settlements in last two years
Stark change in Israeli Jewish view of settlements in last two years

The study also shows that all the liberal and centrist Israeli parties together command 28 percent of Jewish voters’ support– and Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud equals that, at 28 percent. With Naftali Bennett’s settler party getting 11 percent, Shas 12 percent and Avigdor Lieberman’s party getting 9 percent. That’s 60 percent on the right. This is the society that Max Blumenthal told us about and the mainstream media denies: a hard right wing society, shot through with racist attitudes.

Those Israelis don’t like the United States, either. Israeli Jews say that the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, by 5 to 1. Even the seculars are overwhelmingly of that opinion, by about 3.5 to 1, while the religious are more than 6 to 1 on the question.

 

Israeli views of American support
Israeli views of American support

 

But Palestinian citizens of Israel say that the U.S. is too supportive of Israel; more than three out of four say so. Only one in eight thinks the U.S. is insufficiently supportive. Notice that Christians in Israel say the U.S. is too supportive of the country by about 14 to 1! Pew:

Israeli Arabs are considerably less likely than Jews to say U.S. support for Israel is insufficient (12% vs. 52%). In fact, a big majority of Israeli Arabs say the U.S. is too supportive of Israel (77%).

Here is that data:

Pew Forum data on Palestinian views of US support
Pew Forum data on Palestinian views of US support

The message there is that the Israel lobby is a Jewish lobby. Israeli Jews are all for support of their society, but the minority doesn’t like that support, because the society is so discriminatory.

And does this surprise you?

Most Arabs say Israel cannot be both a democracy and Jewish state

Pew’s data show us that the deep divisions within Israel and Palestinians under occupation are reflected inside Israeli society, which reflects hard-right racist attitudes. Jews are legally superior in Israeli society, they like it that way, and Palestinians don’t see Israel as a democracy and don’t like the U.S. support for Israel.

How long can the U.S. continue to be on one side of a Jim Crow society where 20 percent of the population cries out for its rights? How long can American politicians continue to describe this country as a democracy?

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“Those Israelis don’t like the United States, either. Israeli Jews say that the U.S. is not supportive enough of Israel, by 5 to 1”

There’s no pleasing them.

Ungrateful Ingrates.

All very well but will it make the front page of the main US print media.Will it be featured on “Fair and balanced ” faux news. Will NPR hold a discussion on the subject.Will anyone be able to get a response from the WH spokespeople.

It will as usual be kept out of view and eventually disappear .Out of sight , out of mind.

Might I suggest you change the headline to !!.

“Pew,s portrait of “Ugly ” Israel .”

In the next twelve months there will be a dramatic shift in support for Israel and its criminal actions. In my view it has reached a critical tipping point. America and UK can no longer feasibly support OR defend Israel’s actions given the shift in opposition to Israel within American and UK citizenry. Also this is definitely the wrong time for Israel to create hundreds of thousands more refugees. There is talk that the Obama Administration is planning to make a positive shift in the trajectory for ensuring a Palestinian State and will support International Resolutions calling for a Palestinian State before leaving office so it will set the stage for the incoming new President. It would seem the World actually does have a limit.

And unsurprisingly, Isabel Kershner doesn’t mention Israeli Jews’ preference for expelling Arabs until the eighth paragraph in her NYT article on the Pew survey. Differences of opinion on intermarriage are in her first paragraph.