About 83 percent of Israelis believe pulling back to the pre-1967 armistice lines will not bring an end to the conflict nor a peace accord with the Palestinians, a new poll shows.
The poll was conducted by Dr. Mina Tzemach on behalf of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, headed by Dr. Dore Gold, an Israel Hayom columnist and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.
The survey measured the willingness of those polled to change who they vote for, if they found out that their party would be ready to cede east Jerusalem and the Old City in a peace deal. The majority, 69% among the general public and 78% among Jews only, said they would change their vote if their party was willing to relinquish land and Israeli sovereignty over east Jerusalem.
Center-Left voters, surprisingly, were nearly as adamant about preserving a united Jerusalem, with 67% stating that they would reconsider their party affiliation if their party said it would relinquish parts of Jerusalem.
Another poll, conducted by Dr. Mina Tzemach and Rafi Smith for the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, showed that 67% of Israelis would support signing a diplomatic settlement with the Palestinians if they were to declare an end to the conflict and have no further demands.
The poll, reported by Channel 2 TV news, asked participants what their position would be regarding a diplomatic settlement with the Palestinians under a variety of different conditions.
Among the conditions presented to those surveyed: the Palestinians declare an end to the conflict; the Palestinians uphold their (primarily security) commitments to Israel; the U.S. approves the proposed plan; Israel is recognized as the Jewish state and Palestine as the Palestinian state; Palestinian refugees are given the right to return only to Palestine; the Palestinian state is demilitarized; borders are based on the pre-1967 lines including mutually agreed land swaps with security as the guiding principle; large Israeli settlement blocks stay in Israel territory; and Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem remain part of Israel.
