Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Memo to EU Consuls: Eastern Jerusalem Palestinians Want Israeli Citizenship

Honest Reporting/Backspin
12 January '11

A poll of Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem finds that an awful lot of them would like to have Israeli citizenship.

I couldn't find the results at the Pechter Mideast Polls, but Jackson Diehl discusses the numbers. An estimated 270,000 Palestinians live in eastern Jerusalem. Here's a vertical rundown:

• "30 percent said they would prefer to be citizens of Palestine in a two-state solution . . ."

• "35 percent said they would choose Israeli citizenship . . ."

• "Forty percent said they would consider moving to another neighborhood in order to become a citizen of Israel rather than Palestine . . ."

• ". . . 54 percent said that if their neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not move to Palestine."

Diehl's response:

The reasons for these attitudes are pretty understandable, even healthy. Arabs say they prefer Israel's jobs, schools, health care and welfare benefits to those of a Palestinian state -- and their nationalism is not strong enough for them to set aside these advantages in order to live in an Arab country. The East Jerusalemites don't much love Israel -- they say they suffer from discrimination. But they seem to like what it has to offer.

(Read full "Memo to EU Consuls: Eastern Jerusalem Palestinians Want Israeli Citizenship")

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