Israeli flags at the Western Wall in Jerusalem
Israeli flags at the Western Wall in JerusalemFlash 90

Right-wing voters and secular Jews are the groups most likely to identify strongly as a part of Israeli society, most Israelis believe according to a new poll, while Arabs and haredi Jews are the least likely to see themselves as an integral part of the country.

According to the monthly Peace Index poll released earlier this week, a product of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Democracy Institute’s Guttman Center, 85.2% of Israeli Jews believe right-wing voters feel a strong sense of belonging to Israeli society, compared to just 8.8% who say right-wingers do not strongly identify with the country.

By comparison, Israelis were split on whether left-wingers identify with Israel, with 49.8% of Israeli Jews saying left-wing voters do identify strongly with Israeli society, compared to 40.9% who say they do not.

Secular Jews, immigrants from the former USSR, and members of the Druze community are also seen as identifying strongly with Israeli society. Eighty-two-and-a-half percent of Jews see secular Jews as identifying strongly with Israel, compared to 57% who feel the same regarding immigrants from the ex-USSR and 53% who see members of the Druze community in the same light.

Immigrants from Ethiopia and haredi Jews ranked towards the bottom, with 36% of Israeli Jews saying Jews born in Ethiopia identify strongly as Israeli. Thirty-five percent say haredi Jews identify strongly with Israeli society.

Israeli Arabs are perceived as identifying least with the country – a sentiment Arab respondents themselves shared. Just 13% of Jews say Israeli Arabs identify strongly with the country, compared to 34.5% of Israeli Arabs who say most of their community identifies as Israeli. By comparison, 81.1% of Jews and 65.4% of Arabs say Israeli Arabs do not identify strongly with Israeli society.

The survey also showed Israelis to be generally upbeat about Israel’s situation, though most believe little will change over the next year.

Among Israeli Jews, 45.1% say Israel’s overall situation is good, compared to 54.0% of Israeli Arabs who expressed the same sentiment. Just 15% of Jews and 12.1% of Arabs say Israel’s situation is poor, while 37.6% of Jews and 31.6% of Arabs say Israel’s situation is neither good nor bad.

Most Jews say Israel’s situation will likely remain unchanged next year, with 53.9% saying it will be about the same next Rosh Hashanah, compared to 28.4% who say Israel’s situation will be better, and 12.8% who believe it will be worse.

Israeli Jews expressed high levels of confidence in the IDF, but middling levels of trust in the Supreme Court and very low levels of trust in the Chief Rabbinate.

While 88.7% of Jews say they had a high level of trust in the Israeli army, compared to 9.9% who said they had little or no trust in the IDF, 53.9% placed a high level of trust in the Supreme Court, with 44% saying they had little or no trust in the high court.

Just 28.3% say they trust the Chief Rabbinate, compared to 65% of Jews who say they had little to no faith in the state’s top religious body.

Israelis were about evenly divided in terms of whether or not they trust Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with 48.7% of Israeli Jews saying they generally had a high level of trust in the Prime Minister, compared to 48.8% who said they had little to no faith in him. Just 16% of Israeli Arabs, by comparison, said they trusted Netanyahu, with 76.5% saying they had little or no faith in the Prime Minister.

Zionist Union chief Avi Gabbay fared even worse, however, at least among Jews, with just 24.5% saying they trusted him, compared to 49.6% who say they did not. Among Arabs, 18.6% say they trust Gabbay, compared to 41.9% who say they do not.

The Peace Index poll was conducted via telephone and internet from September 25th to 26th by the Midgam Research Institute and surveyed 600 respondents. The poll has a 4.1% margin of error.