The October Peace Index

Here are a few interesting findings from the latest Peace Index conducted by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research:

• 51% of Israeli Jews don't think the Annapolis summit will advance the chances of a peace settlement. I'm surprised the skepticism of the last 7 years doesn't make the number of pessimists even higher.
• 65% of Israeli Jews think that most Palestinians haven't accepted the existence of Israel and would destroy it if they could. I believe this, too. The only reason Palestinians are willing to negotiate with us is because they grudgingly see Israel is here to stay. That's fine. Whether they make peace with us for practical or ideological reasons is not very important.
• 71% support collective punishment against Gaza while 12% oppose it. I'm in the opposition here. Collective punishment is counterproductive.
• 63% said Israeli society is in better shape than Palestinian society. Like, duh! Of course we're in better shape. Whether you're a hawk or a dove you can see our quality of life is much higher than that of the Palestinians.

You can read the article by the researchers in Ha'aretz (Hebrew version available here), or read the report from the Steinmetz Center's website.