[nabla9]

If you reflect a little, I'm sure that you can backtrack that claim that only 1% of Israelis and Palestinians have qualm with each others. Every country has more bigots than 1%.

If you look at Israeli public opinion polls from past ten years or so, you get very different view. 30% feel hatred when they hear Arab spoken in the street, 50% say they would refuse to work at a job where direct supervisor was an Arab.

[MichaelMoser123]

I am an Israeli citizens and worked under an Arabic speaking supervisor as a programmer, didn't have any problems with that. Not sure if these numbers are correct - polls can be manipulated in many subtle ways, polls in Israel have a bad track records in terms of accuracy.

[nabla9]

> I am an Israeli citizens and worked under an Arabic speaking supervisor as a programmer, didn't have any problems with that.

I'm sure your are aware that you didn't give a counterargument.

[MichaelMoser123]

I questioned the validity of polls in Israel, if you noticed. Can expand on that: the population is very fragmented and you can manipulate the poll by the way that a question is framed for instance, by the selection of persons polled, lots if variables that also tend to be abused in one way or another. They can't even get the exit polls right, seriously!

[nabla9]

How about the the elections, local and state, and how the politicians talk to get support. People are honest when they vote.

Maybe moderate people support bigoted politicians for some reason and politicians think that bigotry gets votes, I don't know. But it surely don't look good.

[mola]

Moderate people did support extreme politicians. They accomplished the task by using good old fear tactics (which are especially effective, when actual rockets are flying at major cities and people get stabbed in the streets by people pronounching their will to destroy Israel) Now, we also have a very fragmented parlament which allowed some small parties (the ultra orthodocs) to be a linchpin for coalition building. They aligned themselves with the right, because they got the funds they wanted. (The last moderate leader with a chance of being PM, Tzipi Livni, refused paying them, while Netanyahu didn't. Since then, Netanyahu crippled the Free press with a multi thronged attack. Aided by astronomical sums of money from Sheldon Adleson, created a free daily paper, which he directly controls. He focused his efforts as the minister of communications (he is actually not only the PM but the minister in a few other offices) to destroy a TV channel that was home to some very critical journalists. He managed to fragment the media to a huge amount of small players, reliant on government advertising(all in the name of making the media more democratic and free). After a very successful reform in the public broadcasting channel, done by Gilad Arden, one of his deputees, he learned that the reform didn't give him editorial power, He lamented that the reform was a mistake and tried to shutdown the public broadcasting authority. He is still working on it, he pulled his weight so no extra budget will be given to host the Eurovision competition, which we won last year (yay!) So now the channel either exceeds it's fixed budget, and he can 'prove' that public broadcasting is inefficient. Or the channel won't host the competition, which will make all Israelis hate the public broadcasting authority.... WinWin. Oh another example of him corrupting the israeli media was shown in the recent criminal inditment he is facing. Aledgedly he gave very preferential treatment for a Telco company in exchange for editorial control in a news website owned by the same owner of that Telco...

Using all of these new media channels under his absolute or partial control he galvanised the populus against the treacherous left, and perpetuated a very strong siege mentality (which us Jews are, understandably, prone to) while positioning himself as the only viable leader capable of fending off all those who wish to destroy Israel (which is easy, because there are plenty of people actually seeking that end) The last few years he really upped his game by talking directly to the public through Facebook and WhatsApp, (because the media is apparently against him ️...) And using much more crude language, a la Trump. This new media operation is managed by his son. He and his far right allies also orchestrate a public campaign against the so called left junta in the high court. This is done via his affiliated media, and by bringing about blatantly populist non 'constitutional' laws that the court rejects, which he can use as proof for the 'leftist' court. (We don't have a formal constitution, but we have something similar)

Similarly He also promotes the idea that a leftist junta is controlling the media, the police (after his appointed chief of police didn't curtail investigations against him) and all public beaurocrats. Oh and his son is posting antisemitic memes depicting Soros copied from the American alt right. So yeah, the israeli PM is using classic antisemetic tactics against the israeli left. (We live in weird times... :( )

But, The employment rates are high, TV is entertaining and the economy is stable, so most people can easily buy in the only Netanyahu can lead us.

So if you'd ask me a few years ago, I'd say people of Israel are moderate, but fearful for the lives. Since then, the constant hammering of propoganda is corroding some basic democratic values. Younger people are less moderate, and paradoxaly are more prone to the siege mentality (although Israel is stronger than ever military wise) and nationalistic chauvinism. So I don't know if the future is bright. We still have a vocal oposition, and a moderate (albeit leaderless) majority, so I hope when he leaves the scene we'll manage to come back to some sane discourse, but I won't bet on it.

[MichaelMoser123]

Netanyahu is an extreme politician? I don't buy that. Ok, channel one got renamed, what else changed throughout his last term?

[dotancohen]

Maybe not 1%, but it really is not a significant portion. At least not in the circles where I am found: 1. I'm "a settler" in the West Bank. 2. I work in Israeli high-tech. 3. I work with mostly religious Jews.

Note that the polls suffer from "survivor bias", the people answering the polls are those who feel that they need to should their opinion to the world. I don't answer polls, and with elections coming I get several SMS polls per day sent to my phone.

30% feel hatred when they hear Arabic? Who are they polling?!? There is absolutely no way that is true for the general population. You cannot go anywhere in Israel and not hear Arabic.

50% would refuse to work under Arab supervision? Again, this is ridiculous. I don't think money-sucking Jews would refuse to work under Hitler.

[eganist]

> 50% would refuse to work under Arab supervision? Again, this is ridiculous. I don't think money-sucking Jews would refuse to work under Hitler.

Got curious and googled. Couldn't find that last statistic, but it seems 58% (give or take) of residents in the city of Ashkelon were in favor of terminating public works projects (specifically construction of bomb shelters at kindergartens) where Arab workers were employed.

Whether this is an effective proxy for all of Israel or even for the question at hand is unknown to me, and it probably isn't the case considering Israeli AG Yehuda Weinstein warned the city's mayor not to execute the decree, but I'm not terribly focused on the decree itself as much as I'm focused on the population backing it. 58% of a city would appear to be fearful of an employed population because of their ethnic heritage... that's terrifying.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/ashkelon-mayor-warned-over-arab...

(p.s. it seems mayor Itamar Shimoni ultimately backed off the move, possibly one of the rare cases where an elected public official made a more well-informed decision than what was desired by the official's constituents. https://www.jta.org/2014/11/23/israel/ashkelon-mayor-decides... )

---

Disclosure: I'm an American-born person of Persian descent, though I'm likely unable (and certainly unwilling) to revisit Persia/Iran under the current regime.

[dotancohen]

I'm not sure which polls you are referring to, but I'l make you aware of a common tactic. You cannot believe polls in Israel, the questions and methods used are designed to return a specific conclusion.

Often polls will conflate the terms Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, Gazan, and a few other words. You will see that they will ask a question that is interpreted to the poll taker as "would you agree that Gazans who have bombed Ashkelon should be forbidden to work in Ashkelon" and then reported as "Ashkelon residents in favor of terminating construction of bomb shelters at kindergartens where Arab workers are employed".

The polls are _designed_ to present a specific picture, they are not designed to inform about the true nature of the situation. Just ask yourself, why are so many polls being taken, what is their purpose. You know as well as I do that there are no disinterested parties here, everybody has an agenda. At least I state my agenda and position clearly.

You'll also be surprised to know that I know not a single Israeli, not one, who has any qualm with the Iranian people. We're terrified of their nuclear program, but we remember the days of friendship between our countries and a significant portion of Israelis are of Iranian decent. Iran pretty much attacks us via proxy today (Hizboallah), but we see that as a manifest of their current religious regime and not as representative of the Persian people.

[1024core]

> Maybe not 1%, but it really is not a significant portion. At least not in the circles where I am found

Ah, the "No true Scotsman" defense.