Half of Jerusalem's Palestinians Prefer Israeli Over Palestinian Citizenship

“East Jerusalem [Palestinian] respondents mostly cited practical reasons for this preference: better jobs, income, health care and other social benefits, freedom of travel, and the like.”

Unsurprisingly for anyone who knows anything about the reality of Israel and “Palestine,” over half of East Jerusalem’s Palestinians say they would prefer to be Israeli citizens rather than “Palestinian” citizens. Furthermore, a significant majority (70%) seem to approve of a potential two-state solution. Unfortunately terrorist-controlled “Palestine” does not agree, since it has turned down offers of land and its own state multiple times, but living in Israel and experiencing the non-religiously-biased rights of Israeli residents seems to be de-radicalizing Jerusalem’s Palestinians to some extent.

“[The Washington Institute for Near East Policy] In a mid-June poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (based in Beit Sahour, the West Bank), 52% of Palestinians living in Israeli-ruled East Jerusalem said they would prefer to be citizens of Israel with equal rights -- compared with just 42% who would opt to be citizens of a Palestinian state. This remarkable result confirms and extends a trend first observed five years ago.

In a similar poll in September 2010, one-third picked Israeli over Palestinian citizenship; by September 2011, that proportion had risen to 40%. As of today it has risen again to just over half. This is dramatically different from results in the West Bank or Gaza.”

There are two things to note here. First, Muslim citizens of Israel do in fact have equal rights in all respects with Jewish citizens, so if these non-citizen Palestinians became Israeli citizens they would automatically have equal rights. Secondly, I would be interested to know how accurate the poll results from “Palestinian”-controlled territory are. I’m not saying the “Palestinians” are not being honest in their irrational hatred for Israel, but some subjects of terrorist governments tend to be afraid to be honest—and at least one expert said that family members of dead “Palestinians” are often forced by the government to react certain ways in public to the deaths.

I have previously explained how “Palestine” has never existed as a country, and the “Palestinians” are a conglomeration of other peoples, some of them whose countries don’t want them back. As noted above, “Palestinians” don’t want their own country, they want to wipe Israel off the map. In fact, the “Palestinians” are controlled by several terrorist organizations, including Hamas, that not only carry out terrorist activities against Israel but use their own Palestinian civilians as human shields (not to mention running summer camps to train child soldiers).

“In the earlier polls, East Jerusalem respondents mostly cited practical reasons for this preference: better jobs, income, health care and other social benefits, freedom of travel, and the like. Their Israeli residence permits (‘blue identity cards’) already provide such advantages over West Bank residents, and they increasingly want to retain those advantages as the Israeli economy prospers while the West Bank stagnates. Similarly, in the current poll, around half (47%) say they would take a good job inside Israel. But since such benefits are available to them today even without Israeli citizenship, social taboos and the great practical difficulties of applying for that citizenship mean that only a very small proportion have actually acquired that full formal status to date [emphasis added].

Their everyday access to Israel has probably also made Jerusalem's Palestinians more sanguine about that country's long-term future. A majority (62%) think Israel will still exist, as either a Jewish or a bi-national state, in 30 or 40 years. . .

In some other respects, too, East Jerusalem Palestinians have acquired relatively moderate attitudes toward Israel. A stunning 70% say they would accept the formula of ‘two states for two peoples -- the Palestinian people and the Jewish people.’ In the West Bank, the comparable figure is 56% [emphasis added].”

It’s impressive that even on the so-called West Bank, a majority of people still support a two-state solution!

Not all the news is good from the poll—the East Jerusalem Palestinians have bought into some of the radical Muslim propaganda. Over a third of them approve of terrorist group Hamas, “a majority (61%) also offer at least verbal support for ‘armed struggle and car attacks against the occupation,’” and a majority want to “liberate” what they call “historic Palestine” (which, as I mentioned above, is a fiction that has never existed in reality).

While so many of these residents of Israel supporting terrorism or “resistance” against the Israeli government is very concerning, the poll still gives hope—after all, desire to have Israeli citizenship has been steadily and significantly rising in the last few years. There is hope yet that reality and peace will win out over radical ideology with East Jerusalem’s Palestinians in the end.