Bethlehem Together – A poll found that more than 60% of both the Palestinian and Israeli sides support a regional peace based on a two-state solution and Arab-Israeli normalization if the alternative is a multi-front regional war.
These are the results of the ‘Joint Palestinian-Israeli Pulse’ survey, which is being published today by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah and the International Program on Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University, with funding from the Netherlands Representative Office and the Japanese Representative Office in Palestine through the United Nations Development Programme in Palestine, and whose data was collected in July 2024.
Majorities on each side believed the other was committing genocide. Each side believed its suffering was the most severe among the world’s peoples, and an overwhelming majority on each side believed the other lacked humanity.
When Israeli Jews were asked to choose one of four options describing Palestinian intent
ions on October 7 and the current war: 66% choose ‘to commit genocide against us,’ 27% believe the goal is to occupy the land and expel the Jews (the most extreme of the four), 4% believe the Palestinians intend to occupy the land without expelling the population, and 3% say the Palestinians are defending themselves to restore their security.
When Palestinians are given the same choices, 61% choose ‘commit genocide against us’ and 27% choose ‘occupy our land and expel the Palestinian people’ (the most extreme of the four options). Only 8% believe that Israelis want to occupy the territory without expelling the population and 2% believe that Israelis seek to defend themselves and restore their security.
While 84% of Israeli Jews and 83% of Palestinians agree or strongly agree that the suffering of (our side – Jews and Palestinians) is more difficult compared to others in the world who suffer from oppression and injustice,’ and 62% of Israeli Arabs believe the same about themselves.
When Palestinians were as
ked about the human level of Israeli Jews, they gave them an average score of 6 out of 100. Israeli Jews gave Palestinians an average score of 14 out of 100. Fifty-one percent of Israeli Jews gave Palestinians a score of zero and 71 percent of Palestinians gave Israelis the same score. One percent of Palestinians and about three percent of Israeli Jews gave the other side a score of 80 or higher. This question may reflect respondents’ perceptions of the other side’s inherent qualities, their assessment of the other side’s behavior, or both.
While only 10% of Israeli Jews and 6% of Palestinians agreed that the other side can be trusted. Both results represent the lowest level since the question was first asked in 2017.
The majority expected escalation and moderate hope for regional peace. A large majority on both sides expected the war to escalate and extend to the West Bank and the region.
However, at the moment of choosing between the option of comprehensive regional peace including the two-state solution
and Israeli-Saudi normalization, versus the possibility of a multi-front regional war, the majority on both sides prefer regional peace.
About three-quarters of Israeli Jews (72%) and two-thirds (68%) of Palestinians, along with 60% of Israeli Arabs, expect an escalation of the war to include the West Bank.
About six in ten Israelis (58%, including 62% of Israeli Jews and 41% of Israeli Arabs) and 53% of Palestinians believed that the Gaza war would expand into a regional war.
Asked to choose between a regional war involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Yemen and possibly Iran, or a regional peace agreement involving a two-state solution, Palestine and Israel, and Saudi-Arab-Israeli normalization, 65% of Palestinians and 62% of Israelis chose regional peace, representing much higher support than either side gives to the two-state solution alone. 29% of Palestinians and 38% of Israelis favor regional war.
There is little difference between Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; among
Israelis, 55% of Jews and 89% of Arabs prefer regional, Palestinian-Israeli peace.
41% of Palestinians believed that the current war in Gaza is so horrific and unprecedented that it could create an opportunity for a peace breakthrough as happened after the 1973 war.
More people in the Gaza Strip agree (54%, compared to 31% in the West Bank), while 52% of Arabs in Israel and 23% of Israeli Jews agree.
Two-state solution and conditions for peace
40% of Palestinians support the two-state solution, an increase of 7 percentage points compared to 2022. This percentage of Palestinians who support it is greater than those who support the establishment of a single Palestinian state with limited rights for Jews (33%), or a single democratic state with equal rights for all (25%).
The percentage of Jewish Israelis who support annexing the West Bank without giving the Palestinians equal rights is 42%, double the percentage of those who support a two-state solution, which is only 21% (down 13 points from 2022, and th
e lowest level of support for a two-state solution since similar questions were asked in the early 1990s). 14% of Jewish Israelis support a single democratic state.
Support for a confederation between the states of Palestine and Israel has declined among Israelis compared to 2022: support today stands at 20% of all Israelis (compared to 29% in 2022), but it has risen among Palestinians from 22% to 35% in 2024. Among Israelis, only 12% of Israeli Jews support confederation, compared to 52% of Arabs.
Support for a detailed peace package similar to the one we have presented to the parties since 2018 is up 8 percentage points among Palestinians, down 6 percentage points among Israeli Jews, and down 7 percentage points among Israeli Arabs.
Support for the package today stands at 34% among Palestinians, 25% among Israeli Jews, and 69% among Israeli Arabs. The peace package included the following: a demilitarized Palestinian state, an Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line with equal land swaps, family reunificatio
n of 100,000 Palestinian refugees in Israel, making West Jerusalem the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine, placing the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall under Israeli sovereignty and the Muslim and Christian Quarters and the Temple Mount under Palestinian sovereignty. Israel and the future state of Palestine would be democratic states, the bilateral agreement would be part of a larger peace agreement with all Arab states, the United States and major Arab states would ensure full implementation of the agreement by both sides, and the agreement would mean an end to the conflict and claims. 63% of Palestinians, 65% of Israeli Jews, and 13% of Israeli Arabs oppose this comprehensive package based on a two-state solution.
However, the incentives offered to each side to increase support for this detailed peace package were effective for a significant portion of Israelis and Palestinians, with many saying that specific incentives offered made them more receptive to this peace plan. We o
ffered participants two types of incentives, unilateral and dual:
Unilateral incentives: These are those in which each side is informed of the steps the other side will take, or the concessions it will make, to make the agreement a success. We offered 12 incentives, six for each side. We found that six such incentives cause Israelis who were originally opposed to the detailed peace plan to change their minds and accept it. In addition to the original supporters, an Israeli majority supports the peace plan after each of the six incentives. Among Palestinians, four incentives offered by Israel have the same effect, resulting in a net Palestinian majority supporting the detailed peace plan.
‘Dual’ incentives: These are the same unilateral steps or concessions that we offered to each side separately, but combined together to make six, so that each side gets a concession from the other for every concession made by it. This pairing of incentives is intended to make this exercise more realistic in the event of act
ual peace negotiations, because it contains terms that each side considers favorable to its side, but also terms that are favorable to the other.
This combination is, of course, less effective in mobilizing support for a detailed peace agreement. Nevertheless, this dual incentive did garner the support of a clear majority of Israeli Jews (after accounting for opposition to a deal and vice versa), namely, that each side combat incitement against the other in school textbooks (with 61% support among Israeli Jews). On the Palestinian side, a different dual incentive also brought Palestinian support to a majority. This dual incentive, namely, that Palestinian workers be allowed to work in Israel, while Palestine would allow Israeli factories in the West Bank to remain there.
Source: Maan News Agency