Peace Index: July 2006
Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann

Over three weeks since the campaign in Lebanon began, despite the nonstop
and lethal fire on populated areas and the rising number of civilian and
military casualties, the Jewish public not only justifies the Israeli
offensive in Lebanon and believes the government has clear goals that the
campaign is meant to achieve but also overwhelmingly supports continuing the
fighting until the goals are attained. Similarly, there is almost full
support for the ongoing attacks by the air force even though they are
causing destruction of infrastructure and suffering to the Lebanese civilian
population. Despite criticism in the media, the public gives high marks to
the IDF's combat capability and to the credibility of its reports on the
fighting. Hezbollah's combat capability is also rated high but the public
does not view its reports on events as credible. In addition, the
overwhelming majority believes Hezbollah initiated the attack on the
northern border to serve its own interests and those of Syria and Iran, and
not to help the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. Almost the
entire public supports stationing an international force in Southern Lebanon
to separate the sides and stop the fighting between them.

In the domestic sphere, a small majority defines the national mood as
"moderately good or very good"-a reversal of the pattern observed in the
previous month when the mood of the majority was "moderately bad or very
bad." A large majority also defines their personal mood positively as well
as their own and their family's sense of personal security. There is also a
very wide consensus on the high resilience of Israeli society so far, and
apart from a few percentage points everyone is prepared to personally assist
the residents of the North in various ways. An issue on which there is not a
consensus is the right of protest: the Israeli Jewish public is evenly split
between those who think opponents of the government's policy in Lebanon have
the right to express their protest at present and those who think they
should not exercise the right of protest at this point.

Those are the main findings of the July Peace Index survey that was carried
out on Monday and Tuesday, 31 July-1 August.
The Jewish citizens of Israel currently believe almost unanimously-93%-that
the campaign in Lebanon is justified. Only 5% view it as unjustified, and
the rest have no position. A segmentation by gender reveals that an
overwhelming majority of both sexes justify the campaign, but the majority
is slightly smaller among women-90% compared to 97% among men. Seventy-nine
percent of the total Jewish public favors continuing the fighting until the
goals that were set are achieved, while only 16.5% want an immediate
declaration of a ceasefire and the beginning of a process on the
international level leading to political negotiations. A definite
majority-57%-believe the government has clear goals for the operation, while
34% see it as lacking clear goals (9% do not know). A segmentation by voting
for the Knesset in the recent elections shows that among voters for Yisrael
Beiteinu, the Pensioners, and Torah Judaism, a higher rate view the
government as lacking clear goals than the proportion of those who think it
does have them. Meretz voters are evenly split, while a majority of voters
for all other parties think the government has clear goals for the campaign.

In the same spirit of overwhelming justification of the war, 91% of the
public say the air force attacks in Lebanon are justified even if they cause
infrastructure destruction and suffering to the Lebanese civilian
population. This holds true for a majority of the voters for all parties,
though for Meretz voters it is only a small majority of 53% with 47% saying
the air force attacks are not justified. A gender segmentation shows only a
slight disparity between men and women, with 94% of men justifying the
attacks compared to 87.7% of women even though they cause infrastructure
destruction and suffering to the Lebanese population.

The survey results indicate that the criticisms voiced in the media of the
IDF's achievements in the fighting do not resonate among the Jewish public.
Eighty-seven percent assess the IDF's combat capability as good or very
good, only 9% as bad or
very bad (the rest do not have a clear opinion). Moreover, 78% view the IDF's
reports from the Lebanese battlefield as credible or very credible, only 19%
seeing them as unreliable (the rest have no opinion). Interestingly,
regarding belief or disbelief in these reports a segmentation by party
voting revealed no clear pattern. Hezbollah's combat capability is also
rated high (which might explain why the public is ready to accept continued
warfare against the organization despite the many victims this campaign is
claiming in Israel). Seventy-four percent assess Hezbollah's fighting
capability as good or very good, only 17% as poor or very poor (the rest
have no opinion). As for reports from the battlefield, however, the public
does not give Hezbollah much credit-only 12% view their accounts as reliable
or very reliable, 82% as moderately or totally unreliable.

An especially interesting finding is that an overwhelming majority of the
Jewish public sees no connection between the Palestinian issue and Hezbollah's
initial attack. Only 9.5% think Hezbollah opened the front in the north to
help the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel; 81.5% say they did
so to serve their own interests and those of Syria and Iran.
What will happen after the war? Seventy-one percent favor the stationing of
an international force in Southern Lebanon to separate the sides and stop
the fighting between them-as done, for example, in the battle zones in
former Yugoslavia. Twenty percent oppose stationing such a force.

The high level of consensus on the different aspects of the war appears
closely connected to the high level of national fortitude that the survey
results reveal. Eighty-eight percent see Israeli society as standing up well
or very well so far under the burden of the campaign, with only 9% seeing
its resilience as poor or very poor. This strength is evident in the
declared readiness of almost all the interviewees to help the residents of
the North in one way or another-including hosting, contributions of money or
goods, and so on. A majority of 55% assess the current national morale as
good or very good, 41% as bad or very bad. Note that in the previous month
the corresponding findings were 35.5% and 58%. In other words, since the war
began there has been a substantial improvement in the national morale.
However, regarding personal mood the "positive" majority is larger-about
two-thirds currently define their own mood as good or very good, about
one-third as bad or very bad. Here, in fact, there is a large gap between
women and men. Whereas a majority of men-65.5%-define the national mood
positively, only 45% of women do so while 51% of them (vs. 33% of men)
define it negatively. The same holds true for personal mood-80% of the men
(compared to only 48.5% of the women) define their own mood positively; 51%
of the women (vs. 18% of the men) describe their personal mood in negative
terms. As for sense of personal and family security, 65% feel safe or very
safe and 33% feel moderately or very unsafe. Here too there is a large
gender gap, with 79% of the men feeling safe and only 53% of the women.

Despite the large consensus we described above, media reports indicate that
some members of the public do not agree with the goals of the campaign and
even less with the means Israel is employing. What is the public's stance on
the right to protest the war while the cannons are firing? It turns out the
Jewish public is split almost evenly on this question, with a slight lead
for opponents of exercising the right of protest at this moment. Fifty
percent say opponents of the war should not exercise the right of protest at
present; 47% think it is permissible to do so even while the guns are
thundering. As expected, prominent among the supporters of the right to
immediate protest are Meretz voters, but a majority of Labor, Likud, and
Kadima voters agree. Voters for the religious parties, Yisrael Beiteinu, and
the Pensioners, however, do not agree. Interestingly, on this issue too
there is a gender gap: most women (53%) deny a right of protest at present
while most men (52%) think opponents of the war should currently be allowed
to express their stance. On this question there is also an evident effect of
education: a higher level of education strengthens support for exercising
the right of protest. Only 30% of those with elementary education favor
exercising the right at present compared to 45% of those with high school
education and 51% of those with higher education.

The Israeli Arab public's positions are the opposite of those of the Jewish
public on most of the parameters of the campaign in Lebanon, despite the
fact, or perhaps because of it, that Hezbollah's rockets have exacted a
heavy toll in blood from the Arab sector as well. Only 17% of them view the
campaign Israel is waging in Lebanon as just, with a majority of 68%
defining it as unjust (15% do not know). Only 7% of Israeli Arabs support
continuing the fighting, while the overwhelming majority-71%-favor an
immediate ceasefire (22% do not know). In the same spirit, a large majority
of this sector-79%-view the air force's attacks as unjustified, only 6%
justifying them (15% do not know). On the issue of the credibility of
reports as well, the pattern that emerges is the reverse of the one in the
Jewish sector: only 32% define the IDF's reports as reliable while 53% see
them as unreliable (15% do not know). Fifty-six percent define Hezbollah's
reports, however, as credible and only 27% as unreliable (17% do not know).
The only issue on which the Arab public's positions are similar to those of
the Jewish public is that of stationing an international force in Southern
Lebanon to put an end to the fighting-a majority of 60% favor this and 30%
oppose it (10% do not know).

Indexes:
General negotiation index: 45.8
Negotiation index, Jewish sample: 41.0

The Peace Index Project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace
Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel
Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. The
telephone interviews were carried out by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel
Aviv University on 31 July-1 August 2006, and included 617 interviewees who
represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the
territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size
is 4.5%.