Israel Pew Religious Survey, Israel Polarized

Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

Deep Rifts Among Israeli Jews Are Found in Religion Survey - A major new survey of Israeli attitudes conducted by one of the world’s leading social research centres depicts a country moving further to the right politically, more polarised on the issue of religion, and with about half in favour of “the expulsion or transfer of Arabs”.

Among the most striking findings of the survey, conducted by the highly regarded, US Pew Research Centre found, was that a slim majority of Israeli Jews “strongly” or “mostly agreed” with the idea that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel. Israeli Arabs make up 19% of the country’s population of 8.4 million.

Twenty-one percent of those surveyed “strongly agree” with the proposition and 27% “mostly agreed” giving a total of 48% of Jewish Israelis who support the transfer of Arab citizens. Forty-six percent said they were opposed. The remaining 6% did not give an opinion.

In addition the Pew survey reported that:

Forty two percent of respondents believe that continued building of West Bank settlements helps Israel’s security, against 30% who found them harmful.

Seventy nine percent believe that Jewish citizens of Israel should have preferential treatment over Arab citizens.

Sixty one percent believe that Israel was given by God to the Jewish people.

Pew surveyed more than 5,600 Israeli adults between October 2014 and May 2015, including 3,789 Jews, 871 Muslims, 468 Christians and 439 Druze, and published their findings on Tuesday.

The survey question regarding transfer immediately drew criticism over accusations that it was vaguely worded, including from Israel Prize laureate sociologist Sammy Smooha, who told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “Although it’s clear that support for expulsion and transfer should be condemned, the wording of the question is misleading and vague.”

He added that “the way the question is presented, the statement ‘to expel Arabs from Israel’ is noncommittal and is even easy to agree with”.

Pew’s director of religion research, Alan Cooperman, defended the methodology saying the question on support for transfer was direct and simple.

The research identified Israelis’ political affiliations, appearing to confirm a continuing move rightwards, with some 55% of Israelis identifying themselves in the political centre, 37% on the right and only 8% on the left.

On the question of a negotiated peace with Palestinians, about 40% of Israeli Jews say a way can be found for Israel to co-exist with a future Palestinian state, while a similar percentage believe this is not possible – figures that have been relatively unchanged in recent years.

But the percentage of Israeli Arabs who say such co-existence is possible fell from 74% in 2013 to 50% in 2015.

Responses to questions ranged widely based on responders’ political affiliations. Among those on the right, 62% said settlements helped security, while only 13% of those on the left agreed. Similarly, only 29% on the right think Israel can live peacefully alongside a Palestinian state compared with 86% percent on the left.

It also noted that Israel is becoming more religiously polarised society with both ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews gaining ground on more moderately observant groups.

Despite that, the percentage of the population who defined religion as “very important” in their lives (30%) still appears to lag behind the US, where over more than half define religion as very important.

The survey comes at a time of stalemate between Israel and the Palestinians and with Israel under increased international pressure to scale back is settlement enterprise.

Among Israel’s Arab minority, half of those questioned said an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully with Israel a steep drop from previous surveys.

The research also shows a country deeply divided along religious and political lines with evidence that strongly religious Jews tended to marry within their own groups.

According to the study, 95% of Haredi Jews and 93% of secular Jews have a spouse from the same subgroup, while 85% of religious-Zionist Jews have a religious-Zionist spouse.

The survey found support for issues like the transfer of “Arabs” higher in those who identified themselves as rightwing or religious.

Among the religious, 69% of ultra-Orthodox Jews and 54% of traditional Jews support transfer or expulsion while among secular Jews 58% are opposed to transfer with one-third in favour.