Who will rule in a decade?
Who will rule in a decade?Ohad Tzuigenberg, Flash 90/Pol

Ahead of the 15th Sderot Conference, to take place today and tomorrow at the Sapir Academic College and the Sderot Cinematheque, the "Israel 2028" poll was conducted for the first time.

The poll, conducted by the Rotem-AR Institute under the direction of Dr. Aryeh Rotem, questioned 624 Jewish and Arab respondents (estimated sampling error +/- 3.92 percent) examined the public's assessments of Israel's future image in 2028 with respect to a variety of security-political and socio-economic issues .

The majority of the public, 63%, believe that the right-wing bloc will continue to rule the country in another 10 years and that the dimensions of corruption will only increase, as will the tensions between most of the population groups, while there is little optimism about the establishment of a peace agreement between Israel and the PA. Likewise, there is concern that Iran will acquire a nuclear bomb.

The percentage of Jews who believe that the Right will rule in 10 years is significantly greater than the percentage of Arabs - 66% among Jews and 50% among the Arab population. Almost half of the general public (Arab and Jewish) believes that tensions between Jews and Arabs will increase, but the Arab population is actually slightly more optimistic about this issue - 23% of Arabs and only 18% of Jews think tensions between the two groups will decline. However, Arabs are significantly more pessimistic than Jews about the expected increase in corruption - 64% of the Arabs believe that corruption will increase compared with only 45% among the Jews. In any event, a majority of the public believes that corruption will only increase.

Sixty percent of the public does not believe there will be a permanent agreement with the Palestinian Authority in another 10 years, while Jewish respondents are more pessimistic than the Arab ones about the chances of such an agreement - 63% of Jews think there is no chance, compared with only 45% among Arab Israelis.

As for the chances of Israel reaching peace agreements with other Arab countries, the opinions of the general public (Arab and Jewish) are divided: 39% believe that there is no chance of such peace agreements, compared with 33% who think that there is a possibility. However, when comparing Jewish respondents and Arab respondents in relation to the question, 45% of Arabs actually think that in 10 years Israel will have reached peace agreements with other Arab countries, compared with only 30% of the Jews who believe this will happen.

The percentage of Arabs who believe that the security situation will worsen is significantly higher than the percentage of Jews who believe it will - 35% of Arabs versus 20% of Jews.

The poll also found that 53% of the general public believes that Israel-US relations will improve, compared with only 10% who believe relations will worsen, while with respect to relations between Israel and the European Union 39% think relations will improve compared with 27% who think relations will worsen.