Many Arabs dump Palestinian identity

An Israeli news station has reported on a poll conducted by Professor Sammy Smooha of Haifa University showing that the acceptance of Israel by Israeli Arabs increased markedly between 2012 and 2013.

Channel 10/Nana reported that the poll’s surprising results bucked conventional wisdom:

The research shows that between 2012 and 2013 there was an increase in the percentage of Israeli Arabs recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and Israel’s right to maintain a Jewish majority. Similarly, the percentage of Arabs who define themselves as “Israeli Arabs” without a Palestinian identity has increased.

Among the specific results reported were that the percentage of Israeli Arabs who accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state rose to 52.8 percent from 47.4 percent the year before. There was a more pronounced rise in the percentage of Israeli Arabs who believe that Israel can exist as a Jewish majority state to 43.1 percent up from 29.6 percent a year earlier. The number of Israeli-Arabs who accept their identity as such without identifying as Palestinians increased from 32.5 percent in 2012 to 42.5 percent in 2013. In 2013, 63.5 percent of Israeli Arabs consider Israel to be a good place to live up from 58.5 percent in 2012.

The poll measuring attitudes in Jewish-Arab relations was conducted by Smooha, who won the Israel Prize for sociology in 2008, among 700 Jews and 700 Arabs, Druze and Bedouin.