A Palestinian state is far from universally welcomed by Palestinians according to a survey published today, commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations and conducted by Pechter. The full survey can be read here.
The background is that Palestinian Arabs in East Jerusalem are not citizens of Israel but are extended full rights to work and travel in Israel, receiving exactly the same welfare, unemployment and disability benefits and a vote in local municipal elections (although few do).
“The most striking finding relates to East Jerusalemite preferences for citizenship after a two-state solution has been reached. When asked if they preferred to become a citizen of Palestine, with all of the rights and privileges of other citizens of Palestine, or a citizen of Israel, with all of the rights of other citizens of Israel, only 30% chose Palestinian citizenship.â€
“Thirty five percent chose Israeli citizenship and 35% declined to answer or said they didn’t know.â€
When asked what they thought their neighbours might do, even more would want to become Israelis not Palestinians.
“Those who chose Israeli citizenship most often mentioned freedom of movement in Israel, higher income and better job opportunities, and Israel health insurance. Those who chose Palestinian citizenship overwhelmingly cited nationalism/patriotism as their primary motivation.â€
All the Israel haters, who seem more common in Western academic circles than they are in East Jerusalem, have much food for thought coming from this survey.
Israel is a mostly corruption-free, open, flawed, wonderful, vibrant democracy with a thriving, export-oriented, high-tech, high-growth, innovative economy. The Palestinian Authority is riddled with corruption, widespread theft by government officials from the public purse regularly replenished by foreign aid agencies and naïve donors and has a rising tide of religious extremism making life unpleasant. Its economy is mostly a basket-case.
Israel is blooming. And it’s hardly surprising that even those who’ve in many ways been on the frontline of opposing Israel in the whitest hot centre of conflict about the Holy City of Jerusalem would much rather live in the country described as the “enemy†by what passes for Palestinian political leadership.
VEXNEWS (Archive) 
See below foray into foreign policy by Marrickville City Council, boycotting Israeli goods -but not Burmese, Zimbawean, Iranian or North Korean.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42988.html
What’s next? Council house style is now 1930s German gothic print? Compulsory screenings of the Jew Suss in the Council Chamber?
I wouldn’t go as far to even claim mostly corruption free- its almost an art there, but still should make a few people reconsider their extreme views against the State of Israel.
Statehood means responsbilities like hospitals, schools, employment, roads, welfare etc.
Why would any Palestinian want that? It’s much more fun killing Jews and getting paid regularly by the Dhimmis in the EU and the West.
They’re the world’s biggest rent-seeking dole bludgers.
The Marrickville Council are heroes.
One good think in the longer term with the Jewish settlers stealing Arab/Palestinian land is that if the right wing settlers are concentrated in an ethnically cleansed area of Jerusalem and elsewhere it makes it easier to get rid if them with a neutron bomb without killing Palestinians who have been expelled from their land and homes.
Neutron bombs kill life but do not destroy buildings. After the bombing the corpses of the settlers, who did not leave after being warned the bomb is to go off, need to be removed and the Palestinians can occupy the settler nice new houses.
So to resolve its Jerusalem Question, Israel should just offer Israeli citizenship to all Arabs in Jerusalem. Why don’t they do that? In fact why don’t they resolve their Judaea and Samaria issues the same way?
You can’t have a state for only one religious group. The two state solution will never work or happen. The 3 single God religions of the region have generally lived together since the Roman left and this was only interrupted when the Euro trash crusader invaded and finally got beaten. Why not have a single state of Palestine with equal right for all.
Nah; it will not happen as the Zionists think God gave them Palestine when Joshua sacked Jericho and murdered all the cities men, women, children and animals as a sacrifice to God. What a class act!
Note: God does not exist.
Adrian, not sure if you are ignorant or willfully distorting the facts, but linking Zionism and palestine with Joshua etc is one of the most profoundly silly things I’ve ever read.
Zionism is the belief in a homeland for people of the jewish faith – free from persecution, enslavement and death. At various times, this homeleand was to be in Tasmania, Africa and Detroit. In the early 1900s, European jewish people bought land from Arabs in what was then the Ottoman (Muslim) controlled area known as Israel. teh land was legally sold and these europeans migrated there. At the time, an estimated 700,000 palestinan Arabs lived in this area. Today the Arab population is over 3 million.
In 1947, the UN voted to make this area – about a third the size of Tasmania and only 26 kn across, a separate nation called Israel. The Arab league refused to have a partitian a la Pakistan/India with a dominant Muslim state and declared war. Seven nations tried to wipe out the democratic state (and again 1n 1967 & 1973) …. and now we see 60 years of conflict.
I always find facts make an argument so much more reasonable.
Further note: I don like da Joos.
Hamas and Hezbollah drop a neutron bomb on the settler land thieves.
Adrian Jackson’s knowledge of facts, history and the middle east would fit inisde his diaper.
Zionism is the belief in a homeland for people of the jewish faith – free from persecution, enslavement and death. At various times, this homeleand was to be in Tasmania, Africa and Detroit. In the early 1900s, European jewish people bought land from Arabs in what was then the Ottoman (Muslim) controlled area known as Israel. teh land was legally sold and these europeans migrated there. At the time, an estimated 700,000 palestinan Arabs lived in this area. Today the Arab population is over 3 million.
In 1947, the UN voted to make this area – about a third the size of Tasmania and only 26 kn across, a separate nation called Israel. The Arab league refused to have a partitian a la Pakistan/India with a dominant Muslim state and declared war. Seven nations tried to wipe out the democratic state (and again 1n 1967 & 1973) …. and now we see 60 years of conflict.
I always find facts make an argument so much more reasonable.
Adrian Jackson. If they go ahead and do that they’ll kill more Arabs than Jews.
You really are a piece of work.
Karl Marx (19 Jan 11) No they won’t as the settler thieves have kicked all the non Jews out and stolen their land. A tactic N bomb would do the trick but if Hamas or Hezbollah wanted to destroy everything then there is always fuel-air explosives that sucks the air out of everything, including humans, and crush building, tanks, fighter aircraft, nuclear bomb plants and other infrastructure.
This actually answered my drawback, thanks!
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I never looked at this from your point of view. This is interesting.