More than half of the Jewish public objects to Arabs' living in Jewish neighborhoods, a University of Haifa survey has found. 56 percent of Israeli Arabs strongly support living in the same neighborhood as Jews. While more than two out of three Jews in Israel support friendship with the Arabs, 54 percent said they had no Arab friends, according to the Israeli newspaper ‘Ha’aretz’ citing the Haifa study. Professors Faisal Azaiza and Rahel Hertz Lazarowitz, who conducted the survey, interviewed representative samples of 501 Jews and 513 Arabs.
Only 29 percent of the Jews were very much in favor of living in the same neighborhood as Arabs, and 23 percent supported this moderately. Some 19 percent of the Arab public supported shared neighborhoods moderately, while 25 percent objected to Arabs' living in Jewish neighborhoods. The survey finds that 14 percent of the Jewish public objects to being friends with Arabs; 17 percent do not object to it but prefer friendship with a Jew, while 69 percent were unreservedly willing to be friends with Arabs. Asked who has Arab friends, 54 percent said they did not, and 23 percent said they had Arab friends but had not visited their home in the last two years.
Some 85 percent of Arabs, however, were willing to be friends with Jews compared to 10 percent who were willing but preferred to be friends with Arabs. Only 6 percent of the Arab interviewees objected to being friends with Jews. 19percent of the Arabs have no Jewish friends at all, half of all surveyed said they have visited Jewish friends during the past two years.