Strategic Assessment

This paper analyzes the attitudes of the Israeli Jewish public toward the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, based on the survey conducted in January 2014 within the framework of the INSS National Security and Public Opinion Project (NSPOP). The data suggests that in the long run policymakers should expect lower levels of support for a peace agreement with the Palestinians because younger cohorts of Israelis are increasingly part of a religious population, a sector on the whole less oriented toward a settlement of the conflict. However, there is a parallel trend that indicates that the public tends to support political slogans that have been familiar rhetoric for a sufficiently long time, e.g., “two states for two peoples.” Therefore, policymakers interested in bringing a permanent agreement to a national referendum would do well to adopt a long term strategy and retain the familiar “verbal signals” that will be put to a vote in the referendum.