The Israeli Democracy Institute releases its 2011 results after interviewing 1200 Israelis. As usual, the results make for despairing reading; this from the “Middle East’s Only Democracy Inc”:
- Jewish-Arab Relations: About a third of the Jewish population does not consider Arab citizens “Israelis.” Moreover, 77.9% of Jews believe that a Jewish majority should be required for making critical decisions concerning peace and security and even socio-economic issues and issues of governance (69.5%). In other words, the Arab public is excluded from significant political decision making. A majority of the Jewish population (52%) even rejects the claim that there is discrimination against Arabs in Israel.
- Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom: 50.8% of the population agrees that severe public criticism of Israel should be outlawed. Most of the Jewish population (57.8%) believes that university lecturers should not express political opinions. More than half the Jews (62.9%) even support political control of the content of academic courses.
- National Solidarity: 83% are proud to be Israelis (more than half the Arab citizens are proud of being Israeli); 78% are certain they want to remain in Israel in the long range and 69.5% feel they are part of the state and its problems. The public estimates the overall solidarity of Israeli society to be moderate, with an average score of 4.8 out of 10. The average score for solidarity of Israeli Jewish society is a little higher (5.8%). Paradoxically, Arab citizens ascribe greater internal solidarity to Jewish society than they ascribe to their own society.