Both subjective and objective factors have impacted on opinion
among Israeli Jews as indicated by data collected between 1987 and
2004 from the National Security and Public Opinion Project of the
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies(1). Threat perception is a
subjective assessment and it is a powerful predictor of policy
positions (2). Variations in perceived threat among Israeli Jews
are related to acceptance of the establishment of a Palestinian
state and to the structure of public opinion during the period
under study. The distribution of opinion and assessments of the
future were related to the opinions people held, and varied with
objective developments on the ground regarding the conflict
(3).
A. Threat Perception and a Palestinian State
Perceived threat was measured by using the responses to the
question, "What are the aspirations of the Arabs?" Israeli Jews
demonstrated a very somber appraisal of the aspirations of the
Arabs. Of the 19,641 respondents who answered the question in the
1987 to 2004 period, a total of 60 percent were considered to
perceive high levels of threat: A third of all respondents thought
the Arabs wanted to conquer Israel and to kill its Jews, and
another 27 percent reported that the Arabs wanted to destroy the
State of Israel. The two other possible responses were considered
to represent low threat perception: To regain all the territories
lost in 1967 was mentioned by 30 percent of the samples over the
years and an additional 10 percent said to win back some of those
territories.
There has been variation in the responses to this question over
time. A total of 74 percent of Jews in 2004 indicated high threat
perception, with 33 percent responding that what the Arabs aspired
to was to slay much of the Jewish population of Israel, with an
additional 41 percent saying their goal was to conquer the State of
Israel. The array of these answers over the years is presented in
Figure 1. The level of threat in 2004 was reminiscent of the
pre-Oslo era at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the
1990s. In the mid-1990s, threat perception was consistently
lower.
The Peace Process Period
The aspirations of the Arabs have long been viewed with suspicion
by Israelis, though the beginning of the peace process in 1991
seemed to initiate a process of moderation of that pattern (4). Not
coincidentally, important developments were taking place and some
in the Arab world were turning a conciliatory face toward Israel.
In November 1988, the Palestine National Council, meeting in
Algiers, officially accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan, thus
recognizing a two-state solution to the Palestine problem. By 1992,
the preliminaries regarding the peace talks had taken place and
negotiations were about to begin. In September 1993, Yitzhak Rabin,
prime minister of Israel, and Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), shook hands on the White House lawn
in Washington after signing an accord granting mutual recognition
and spelling out, in a vague manner, the steps that would lead to
peace between the two parties. The agreement regarding Hebron in
1998 coincided with the lowest rate of perceived threat. These
rates began soaring just before and after the onset of the al-Aqsa
intifada in 2000, the breakdown of talks between Yasser Arafat,
Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David and Taba, and the
election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel.
Agreement to a Palestinian State
The second curve plotted in Figure 1 represents the percentage of
respondents agreeing with the statement that Israel should agree to
the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a final- status
arrangement. Over the years, 43 percent agreed with that statement
and 57 percent disagreed. Rates of agreement were very low in the
1980s and through the mid-1990s. Since the second half of the
1990s, the spread regarding that question has oscillated around the
50-50 level. The converging lines of Figure 1 for the 1986-1996
period provide evidence for the generalization that a more
conciliatory position is related to lowered threat perception; the
widening of the gap in 2003-2004 indicates the erosion of that
convergence and the possible separation of the trends in the
future.
Majority in the Middle
It is sometimes fashionable to characterize Israeli public opinion
as split between a more militant and a more conciliatory stand on
the political and security issues that confront the state. While
this is true, it is important to remember that those groups are not
static nor do they include all of the public. In addition to the
third (or so) who are militant, and the quarter (or so) who tend to
be conciliatory, the majority of Israeli Jews populate a "middle"
category that is both flexible and dynamic. The contours of that
middle group are the lifeblood of Israeli politics. It was Sharon's
ability to portray himself as a leader of the militant group, while
simultaneously adopting many of the conciliatory attitudes of the
middle group, that gave him the undisputed role of leadership that
he has commanded in the Israeli political system since 2001.
Impact of Threat Perception on Attitudes
A sense of the processes involved can be gleaned by considering the
position regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state held by
those perceiving high and low levels of threat during the years
under consideration (see Figure 2).
Three periods are considered: the pre-Oslo years of 1987-1993, the
Oslo period (1994-2000) and the post-Oslo period of 2001-2004.
Figure 2 displays the support for a Palestinian state by level of
threat and period.
The most interesting finding revealed by Figure 2 is that the level
of threat generated different patterns of support or opposition to
a Palestinian state, depending on the developments in the
situation. In the pre-Oslo period, 55 percent of those with low
threat perception supported the establishment of a Palestinian
state, compared with 27 percent of those who perceived high threat.
In the Oslo period, fewer Israelis felt threatened and the rate of
support jumped 12 percentage points to 67 percent, while for those
who perceived a high threat the rate of support for a Palestinian
state barely changed.
By extension, in the post-Oslo period, the dramatic change was
among those who perceived a high threat. Their rate of support for
a Palestinian state fell by 9 percentage points from 28 percent to
19 percent, while for those with low levels of perceived threat,
the rate of support for a Palestinian state reverted to the
pre-Oslo level (55 percent to 51 percent). In other words, opinion
shift was differential and it depended on (among other things) the
level of threat perception. The period of conciliation of Oslo
affected those with a low threat perception but had no impact on
those with a high threat perception. By contrast, the bad news of
the post-Oslo period lowered support in both groups, but lowered
the support for those with high threat perception much more than
for those with low threat perception.
Over the years, the international community adopted plans calling
for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and agreement with
the idea of a Palestinian state, once taboo in Israeli politics,
had become part of the emerging reality. In 2004, slightly more
than half the Israeli Jewish sample thought a Palestinian state was
likely to be established in the next five years. This was down from
77 percent in both the 1997 and 1999 surveys, but was much higher
than the 37 percent rate recorded in 1990 or the 48 percent rate in
1991. In terms of emotional political symbolism, a Palestinian
state was much less potent at the end of the 1990s than it was at
the end of the 1980s.
Public opinion is a conglomerate of attitudes of numerous
individuals and it is the aggregate impact that is important. Doves
are likely to change attitudes at a faster rate in conciliatory
times while hawks might not change their attitudes at all. On the
other hand, hawks will become more hawkish in times of tension,
while doves will also become more hawkish, but at a slower
rate.
Opinion shift depends on the magnitude of the changes in the
situation and how they are framed by the leadership and the media
and absorbed by the public, and by the way the public splits in
terms of threat perception. Registering a net change in public
opinion in the direction of conciliation will be that much more
difficult if the size of the low threat perception group is small.
Two things happened in the Oslo period: the size of the low threat
perception group grew, and that group did most of the growing of
conciliatory positions with the net effect of a population that was
more amenable to returning territories for peace and for the
establishment of a Palestinian state. By extension, the post-Oslo
period was characterized both by a decrease in the size of the low
threat group and a concomitant growth of those perceiving high
threat levels, while those who remained in the low threat group
retained their conciliatory positions.
Impact of the Second Intifada
A dramatic indication of the impact that developments on the ground
had on public opinion was the public's response to the question of
whether the Israeli-Arab conflict would end after peace agreements
were signed between Israel and the Palestinians. In 2004, only 26
percent thought that signing such treaties would mean an end to the
conflict compared to 67% in 1999(see Figure 3). A spectacular
change in expectations had occurred over the years in the
assessment of the Israeli public. This massive shift in public
opinion captured the disillusionment many Israelis felt with the
peace process that was initiated in the Oslo Accords of 1993. The
mutual trust needed for building peace was shattered with the start
of the intifada in 2000 and has not yet rebounded; in fact, it
might even be receding. In 1999, 64 percent thought that most
Palestinians want peace; in 2004, only 43 percent thought so.
B. War, Peace and Terror-Related Deaths
Public opinion does not change in a vacuum; developments impinge on
perception and perceptions are framed and mediated by authoritative
sources. A good example of this is the public's assessment of the
likelihood of war breaking out or of peace being advanced. In the
public mind these two issues seemed to go together, and the public
seems astute in assessing the situation and/or in reflecting the
situation reported to it by leaders and the media.
Until the second intifada, Israeli Jewish opinion saw the
likelihood of war as lower than the hope for peace (or the absence
of war). For example, in 1987, 57 percent thought that war was
probable or very probable between Israel and an Arab state in the
following three years, while 59 percent thought the chances of
peace with Arab states were high or very high (see Figure 4). By
1990, the numbers had climbed to 68 percent about war and 78
percent about peace. By 1996, the numbers were 37 percent
concerning war and 75 percent regarding peace and, for 1998, 54
percent regarding war and 57 percent concerning peace.
During the second intifada these numbers were reversed and the
probabilities of war were seen as much higher than those of peace.
In 2002, 79 percent saw the probability of war as high or very
high, compared with 21 percent regarding peace. In 2004, 35 percent
thought the chances were high or very high that war would break out
in the next three years, compared with 30 percent regarding
peace.
Calculating the Expectations of War and Peace
We may conceive of the difference between the percentage who saw
the probability of war in the next three years as very high or high
minus the percentage of those who viewed the probability of peace
in the next three years as high or very high as an assessment of
the future. Using this calculation, 1996 gets a score of -38 (37
percent war minus 75 percent peace = -38), 1998 gets a score of -3
(54 percent war minus 57 percent peace = -3) and 2002 gets a score
of 58 (79 percent war minus 21percent peace = 58). When these
scores are plotted against the number of actual Israeli deaths from
acts of terror, the overlap of the curves is stunning (see Figure
5). Both curves peak in 2002 and then fall off again. The public
seems to adjust its assessment to the changing situation.
Shifts in public opinion take into account short-term developments
and long-term goals, altering situations and fundamental
realignments. Just as the meaning of the establishment of a
Palestinian state has changed in the public mind in Israel, so has
the level of support for its implementation. While there might be a
swell of public support (or at least a lessening of opposition) to
the proposition, the political obstacles to such an establishment
remain formidable. It is the interaction of these dimensions that
is the key to understanding and to analyzing the ever-changing
contours of Israeli public opinion.
(1) For methodological details including exact dates and
sample sizes see, Asher Arian, Israeli Security Opinion, 2004, Tel
Aviv: Tel Aviv University, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies,
2004; see http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/. See also Security Threatened:
Surveying Israeli Opinion on Peace and War, Cambridge University
Press, 1995 (Hebrew version, Papyrus, 1999).
(2) Carol Gordon and Asher Arian, "Threat and Decision-Making,"
Journal of Conflict Resolution, April 2001, 196-215.
(3) "Opinion Shift in Israel: Long-Term Patterns and the Effects of
Security Events," in Concerned with Security: Learning from the
Experience of Israeli Society, edited by Daniel Bar-Tal, Dan
Jacobson and Aharon Klieman, JAI Press, 1998.
(4) For the 1967-79 period, see Russell A. Stone, Social Change in
Israel: Attitudes and Events, 1967-79, New York: Praeger, 1982,
36-44.
