(Ha'aretz) Shany Mor - Last week a news article in Ha'aretz carried the provocative headline: "A majority of Israelis support apartheid policies in Israel." The survey and its presentation have all the hallmarks of a serious failure of oversight. There were misleading translations, sloppily-worded questions producing meaningless "findings," dubious aggregations of the data that produced misrepresentations of opinion, and agenda-driven editorializing. The adjoining graphic in the English edition, unlike the one in Hebrew, inexplicably left out the following findings: A majority of Israeli Jews report that they would not be bothered having an Arab neighbor in their building; a majority of Israeli Jews report that they would not be bothered if their children studied in a class with an Arab pupil; and a majority of Israeli Jews reject the proposition that Arabs not be allowed to vote in parliamentary elections. The writer is Senior Research Associate at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).
2012-10-30 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive