The vast majority of Israeli Arabs would not want to live in a future Palestinian state, a poll found.
According to a survey published over the weekend in the Israeli-Arab A-Sinara newspaper, 78 percent of Israeli Arabs do not want to be part of a future Palestine, while 18 percent do. The rest were undecided.
The number of respondents and margin of error were not immediately available.
A-Sinara commissioned the poll in light of growing calls within the Jewish state for Arab population centers to be ceded to the Palestinians in exchange for West Bank settlement blocs. Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population and some of the community’s leaders have stirred Jewish ire by coming out against Zionism and in favor of Palestinian groups, including Hamas.
Many Israeli Jews believe their Arab compatriots want to stay in Israel because of economics, but this was denied by Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli-Arab lawmaker.
“We have two identities, the national identity, as Arabs and Palestinians, and the other identity, as Israeli citizens,” he told Army Radio. “Both are important.”
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