The Association for Civil Rights in Israel on Sunday published a survey in honor of International Human Rights Day (which took place Saturday, Dec. 10), showing 24% of Israelis say their most urgent need is the right to a livable income. Equality came second, with 22%, followed by the right to housing (21%) and to health and education (20%).
The survey, conducted by public opinion analyst and strategic consultant Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin included 500 Israeli Jews and 200 Arabs, with a 4.4 point margin of error. Scheindlin is an extreme-leftwinger and a regular contributor to the anti-Zionist 972 Magazine. She peppers her report with political commentary – attributing her own survey’s results to “the precarious job security and economic situation in the country,” even though the jobs and income answer leads the other three by a mere 2 to 4 percentage points. But the data was collected by New Wave Research, which is a Nielsen affiliate, so in this report we’ll provide the results and skip the commentary.
According to the survey, 65% of Jews and 85% of Arabs believe there is an inequality between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Only 49% of respondents describing themselves as rightwing believe this, compared with 90% of leftwingers and 76% of centrists. 75% think Israel should improve equality among its citizens. 26% of Jews and 12% of Arabs said Israel in its current complex reality cannot be expected to do this.
Here’s a loaded item: 30% support segregation between Jews and Arabs in public places, 18% support reducing the presence of women in public places.
39% of respondents said they have experienced some discrimination: 64% of Russian Jews, 61% of settlers, 51% of religious Jews, and 46% of Oriental Jews. 19% experienced discrimination in the workplace, 15% in a government institution, 13% while waiting for service, 10% in an educational institution, and 7% in a place of entertainment.
Israelis are not gung-ho, apparently, on freedom of expression. 28% believe police should not permit controversial demonstrations. 56% of the Jewish respondents support limits on freedom of expression in sensitive issues such as the Holocaust or the Jewish identity of the state. 61% of rightwingers supported such limits.
43% object to giving children of foreigners living in Israel (presumably migrant workers, legal and otherwise) the same privileges as Israeli children. This includes 35% of secular Jews and 20% of Israeli Arabs.
Regarding the liberated territories, 86% of Jews believe Israel observes the human rights of Arabs living there, only 15% of Arab respondents hold the same view. 95% of rightwingers and 80% of centrists believe Israel does not deprive those Arabs of their human rights, compare with 40% of leftwingers. At the same time, 89% of the Jewish respondents justified limiting the freedom of movement of Judea and Samaria Arabs and demolishing the homes of Arab terrorists. Concurrently, 52% of Jews believe limiting housing construction, evicting and imposing administrative detention of Judea and Samaria Jews are violations of their human rights, 46% believe they are unjustified.