Israelis are overwhelmingly in favor of peace talks with the Palestinians, but skeptical as the outcome, according to a representative opinion poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University.
Asked about their view regarding peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, almost two thirds (62 percent) said they were in favor, while 33 percent voiced opposition to such talks. Israeli Arabs were far more likely to support peace talks than Israeli Jews. Of Arab respondents, 87 percent favored talks.
Despite their support for talks, two thirds of Israelis do not believe that negotiations will bring peace in the coming years and less than a third think it will.
About half of the respondents said the status quo with the Palestinians was not sustainable, while 42 percent said the conflict could be maintained for many more years without it harming Israel’s security or existence.
Jewish Israelis were split on whether or not Israel should annex all of the territory conquered in the 1967 Six Day War, with 45 percent supporting it and the same number opposing such a move.
Three quarters of respondents said they did not think, with varying degrees of certainty, that the international community’s criticism of Israeli policies in the West Bank takes Israeli and Palestinian interests into consideration equally. Around 44 percent said Israel should take the world’s criticism seriously, whilst 50 percent said the opposite.
The poll was conducted between 26 and 28 January 2016 among a representative sample of 600 Israeli adults; it has a margin of error of 4 percent.
