Monday, July 19, 2010

BRITISH JEWS SEE THEMSELVES AS ISRAEL’S CRITICAL FRIENDS

Jews in Britain strongly identify with and support Israel.  They are ready to see Israel swap territory for peace and to talk with Hamas if it will advance the cause of peace. At the same time, they are concerned about Israel’s security, support the separation barrier/security fence and viewed the 2008/09 operation in Gaza as “a legitimate act of self-defence.”
These are the central findings of the most definitive study ever conducted of the attitudes of Jews in Britain towards Israel.  The study, entitled Committed, concerned and conciliatory: The attitudes of Jews in Britain towards Israel, is published today by the community’s leading research institute, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR).
Based on over 4,000 individual responses, with fieldwork conducted by Ipsos MORI and with the support of several leading experts in Jewish demography and sociology, the findings show that:
More than nine out of ten Jews have visited Israel, and a similar number consider it their ‘ancestral homeland’. 
Four-fifths of respondents say Israel plays a central or important role in their Jewish identities, and one in five says they are very or fairly likely to live there in the future.

See http://www.jpr.org.uk/publications/publication.php?id=235