A new Israeli poll has revealed that clear majorities of Israeli Jews believe Palestinian Arabs want to destroy Israel and reject land-for-peace deals & unilateral concessions to Palestinian Arabs. The poll of 709 Israeli Jews, carried out by INSS (previously the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies) shows the following:

• A large majority of Israelis — 71% — believe that the real goal of the Palestinian Arabs is to destroy Israel (with 42% also believing that the Palestinian Arabs would also expel all Jews).
  
  
• Another large majority of Israeli Jews — 72% — oppose the uprooting of Jewish communities within the framework of further Israeli unilateral withdrawals in Judea and Samaria.
  
  
• 58% of Israeli Jews reject the “land-for-peace” formula whereby Israel has made territorial concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
  
  
• More than two-thirds of Israelis — 69% — believe that it is impossible to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinian Arabs ( Independent Media Review Analysis, May 18).
  

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “The results of this poll are as striking as they are important for it is often said that the Israeli public supports further unilateral concessions to the PA. In fact, the election of Hamas, the incessant barrage of rockets from territory evacuated by Israel in Gaza, the assaults and kidnappings from both Gaza and southern Lebanon and the smuggling in of massive amounts of offensive weaponry into Gaza by terrorists has persuaded the Israeli public that the Palestinian Arabs do not seek peace, that they continue to wage terrorism and incite their youth to hatred and murder of Jews in response to Israeli concessions, and that uprooting Jewish communities is no solution to these problems.

“Israelis are no longer fooled by the false promises of Palestinian Arabs and understand now that their goal is Israel’s destruction, as it was when the Oslo process began. Now we see that a majority of the Israeli public oppose the unilateral concessions and withdrawals advocated by Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni and others.”