Israel-Palestine: the thick grey line
The most intractable global conflict in the past 100 years, the struggle of the Israeli and Palestinian people to co-exist, confounds rather than polarises the Australian public.
With a bitter public debate playing out between conservative commentators and sections of the Australian Greens, this week’s Essential Report finds that when given the options of black or white, the general public opt for grey.
As we did recently with attitudes to Muslims, we asked the questions to understand, rather than inflame the issue. What we found was an electorate that is not picking sides and is prepared to admit the issue is too complex for simple solutions.
Q. What, in your view, is the single biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East?
|Total||Vote Labor||Vote Lib/Nat||Vote Greens|
|Unwillingness of Israelis/ Palestinians to compromise||33%||38%||31%||37%|
|The Israeli (housing) settlements in areas which Palestinians claim for an independent Palestine||6%||6%||7%||14%|
|Israel's oppression of Palestinians||8%||8%||8%||15%|
|Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis||5%||3%||7%||5%|
|Infighting between the various Palestinian organisations (e.g. Hamas and Fatah)||6%||5%||7%||4%|
|Inaction by the United Nations||3%||4%||3%||2%|
|Opposition to Israel from other Middle Eastern countries||8%||7%||9%||-|
What’s interesting here is that all the simple obstacles receive fewer than ten per cent support; indeed the more vociferous the proposition from either side, the less support can be mustered. In contrast, a recognition of the failure of either side to compromise is rated the top barrier to peace.
The other take-out is the high number of respondents who place themselves in the ‘don’t know’ column. To put this finding in context, most political questions draw a ‘don’t know’ of around ten per cent - these are the purely disengaged. A ‘don’t know’ this high suggests a more honest and engaged and considered appraisal of a complex situation - people are genuinely undecided.
A second set of questions that ask about the impact of the ongoing conflict, give a fuller picture of the impact of the dispute on the way we view the world.
Q. To what extent, if at all, do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements?
|Total agree||Total disagree||Neither/Don’t Know|
|Australia should support the Israelis rather than Palestinians||14%||23%||62%|
|Being critical of Israel makes a person anti- Semitic||10%||46%||44%|
|The Palestine- Israel conflict fuels anti- Semitism in Australia||27%||24%||49%|
|The Palestine- Israel conflict fuels anti-Muslim feelings in Australia||31%||21%||48%|
Again, the number of people in the Don’t Know or Neutral response category is particularly high, but there are some other propositions that bear scrutiny.
The first is the strong rejection of the idea that Australia should be taking sides in the conflict, a line pushed strongly by sections of the conservative media and commentariat. Likewise, the idea that being critical of Israel makes a person anti-Semitic is roundly rejected.
But there are more mixed responses on how the conflicts creates broader division, with a sizable level of support for the ideas it fuels both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments.
Picking sides in complex geo-political disputes is always fraught. Obviously there are sections of society with direct knowledge and insights into the region who exercise their democratic rights in campaigning for their cause.
The greater danger is where these issues are picked up by political parties as domestic policies purporting to represent the views of mainstream Australia.
Because what these findings do is serve as a warning to both sides of the debate, that turning their opponent into the bad guy will just not wash with the general populous.
Peter Lewis is a director of Essential Media Communications.