57% of the public believe that Israel should never have built the settlements in the Gaza Strip, compared with 37% who believe that they should have been built, according to a survey by the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media Politics and Society at Tel Aviv University. The survey was part of a research project on public confidence in the media.
The survey found that 52% of Israelis believe that the settlements in the Gaza Strip worsened the security situation, rather than improving it. 65% believe that settlers in the Gaza Strip were motivated by Zionist and pioneering ethos.
57% of the public predicts an improvement in Israel’s relations with the world, while 12% disagree. 52% fear that domestic social tensions will intensify after the disengagement is carried out, and 43% believe that Palestinian terrorism will increase. 25% believe that it will decrease. 47% of the public believes that Israel had no choice but to withdraw from the Gaza Strip under the present regional conditions.
Chaim Herzog Institute director Dr. Yoram Peri and Dr. Yariv Tsefati of the University of Haifa, who conducted the survey, said it showed that most of the public was ambivalent about the disengagement. “The public does not think that disengagement will bring peace, and might not even reduce terrorism, but the public supports it, believing that there is no alternative.”
In contrast to the clear support for the government on matters relating to the disengagement, 46% of the public is dissatisfied by media coverage of the issue. Only 32% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the media coverage.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 24, 2005