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The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel

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Stephen Miller Margaret Harris The Attitudes Colin Shindler of British Jews Editorial adviser: Edward Temko Towards Israel Department of Sociology School of Arts and Social Sciences City University London The lead author is Stephen Miller, Emeritus Professor of Social Research, City University London Margaret Harris is Emeritus Professor of Voluntary Sector Organisations, Aston University, Birmingham; Visiting Professor at Birkbeck, University of London Colin Shindler is Emeritus Professor of Israel Studies, SOAS Edward Temko is a writer and former editor of ‘The Jewish Chronicle’ The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel CONTENTS Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................p5 Executive Summary..........................................................................................................................................p7 Methodology .....................................................................................................................................................p12 Findings..............................................................................................................................................................p15 Part A Commitment and Attachment............................................................................................p15 Part B Key Issues..................................................................................................................................p16 B1 The desire for peace.........................................................................................................p16 B2 Support for a two-state solution....................................................................................p18 B3 Attitudes to settlement expansion................................................................................p19 B4 Control of the West Bank – security and demography.............................................p20 B5 Obstacles to peace............................................................................................................p22 B6 Perceptions of Israel’s desire for peace........................................................................p23 B7 The right to criticse and the place to do it..................................................................p24 B8 The Gaza conflict of summer 2014...............................................................................p25 B9 The term ‘Zionist’.............................................................................................................p28 B10 Knowing others’ minds.................................................................................................p30 Part C Variations in attitudes to Israel..........................................................................................p32 C1 A scale of hawkishness-dovishness..............................................................................p32 C2 The relationship between H-D scores and other variables.....................................p32 C3 Predictive power of variables associated with dovishness–hawkishness...........p35 C4 Synagogue affiliation and dovish-hawkish attitudes...............................................p37 C5 Synagogue groups and criticism of Israel...................................................................p39 C6 Variations in dovishness with age................................................................................p40 C7 Variations in dovishness with education....................................................................p42 C8 Aliyah and anti-Semitism..............................................................................................p44 Concluding comments....................................................................................................................................p46 Appendix 1: Sampling methodology...........................................................................................................p49 Appendix 2: Advisory panel..........................................................................................................................p53 Appendix 3: Attitude statements used to construct the Hawishness-Dovishness (H-D) scale......p54 3 The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel INTRODUCTION The relationship between that British Jewish opinions on the funding body. The data collection British Jews and Israel is political issues confronting Israel was undertaken by the independent the focus of intense debate, are diverse and not easily captured research organisation Ipsos MORI political analysis and by simple monolithic statements. and the questionnaire was designed communal interest. Yet as a In particular, it found that opinions by the authors working with Ipsos field of empirical research, that are highly critical of Israel’s MORI’s Social Research Institute with one notable exception1, conduct and policies may often and with advice from a panel of British Jewish attitudes to co-exist with clear support for its Jewish lay and professional advisers Israel are rarely investigated legitimacy and survival. (see Appendix 2). and poorly understood. This makes it easy for speculation The JPR research was the first Structure of the report and assertion to triumph over robust attempt to calibrate British evidence; and it means that the Jewish attitudes towards Israel and This report is in three sections: representation of the British its conflict with the Palestinians. Jewish community’s stance on The present study addresses Section 1 summarizes the research Israel, and the quality of its similar issues some five years methodology, with a fuller account internal discourse, are both on – post the 2014 Gaza conflict, of the sampling strategy set out in undermined. the emergence of ISIS, further Appendix 1. expansion of the settlements, This report seeks to improve the increased boycott activity and a Section 2 sets out the key findings, evidence base available to scholars raft of other political developments. divided into three parts: with an interest in perceptions We have repeated some of the JPR of Israel. It provides up-to-date, attitude measurements and we have A - examines overall attitudes to reliable data on the way British also looked at attitudes to some Israel as a Jewish state; Jews see Israel and how they new issues, including sanctions construe their own obligations against Israel, the demographic B - provides a detailed analysis of towards it. Using standard research balance between Jews and Arabs, attitudes to specific issues; and methodologies, we have collected and priorities for the new (2015) data on the attitudes of 1131 British Israeli government. This study C - plots variations in attitude Jews towards Israel’s policies and also examines for the first time the across different sections of the conduct, and also assessed their accuracy with which individual Jews community and examines feelings about its approach to can assess the representativeness of which factors are associated peace and negotiations with the their own views about Israel. with having hawkish and Palestinians. dovish opinions Our report sets out the key statistical The research was conducted in findings and offers a straightforward Section 3 points briefly to some key the period March to July 2015, interpretation of what they show. findings which appear to us to have roughly one year after the conflict Some brief comments on the implications for the British Jewish in Gaza in the summer of 2014, and possible implications of those community and its relationship with some five years after the Institute findings are included in the final Israel. for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) section of the report. published its landmark study on the same theme. That research The research was funded by Yachad - demonstrated Israel’s central role in a pro-Israel, pro-peace campaigning the construction of Jewish identity. group – and we are grateful to It found almost universal support for the board, director and staff for Israel’s legitimacy as the ancestral supporting our work. However, the homeland of the Jewish people design and analysis of the survey and a strong desire for peace and was undertaken by the research security. The JPR study also showed team working independently of the 1 ‘Committed, concerned and conciliatory: the attitudes of Jews in Britain towards Israel’. D.Graham and J.Boyd, JPR Report, July 2010. 5 The Attitudes of British Jews Towards Israel EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report explores the attitudes of 1131 British Jews towards Israel and its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. The research was conducted in the period March to July 2015, roughly one year after the 2014 Gaza conflict. • The research examines the nature of British Jewish attachment to Israel and the level of support for its current policies and conduct. It covers a wide range of issues including attitudes towards settlement expansion, Palestinian rights, the 2014 Gaza conflict, sanctions against Israel, the demographic balance between Jews and Arabs, the need for security and priorities for the new Israeli government. • The research also examines how attitudes to Israel vary with age, synagogue affiliation, level of education and political stance. And it explores for the first time, the ability of British Jews to assess the extent to which their own views are representative of the Jewish community as a whole. • Data collection was based on an online
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