Ahead of Israel’s 69th Independence Day, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University Peace Index offered a statistical snapshot of how Israelis feel about life in Israel, concluding that in general, Israelis – Jews and Arabs alike – are satisfied and optimistic.
The vast majority of Israelis – 80 percent – are proud to be Israeli (Jews, 86.1 percent; Arabs, 51.1 percent), while 71 percent are optimistic about Israel’s future. The majority of both Jews (82 percent) and Arabs (58 percent) said they feel “to a moderately large extent” or “to a very large extent” a part of the state of Israel.
Nearly 50 percent of the Israeli public sees Israel’s overall situation as “good” or “very good.” Interestingly, this includes 66 percent of Arabs and just over 43 percent of Jews.
When it comes to personal situations, 74 percent of Jews and 57 percent of Arabs rated them as good or very good.
Asked to assess Israel’s achievements in maintaining security, 81 percent of the public’s response was “moderately good” or “good.” Only 2.6 percent see it as “not good at all.”
Israelis are also confident regarding economic stability. Some 62 percent of Jews and 75 percent of Arabs see the situation as moderately good or good. However, when it comes to reducing social gaps, more than one-third, 35.6 percent, sees the situation as “not so good” or “not good at all.”
Not surprisingly, when it comes to questions of medicine, health, education and science, Israelis rank their state high. Some 70 percent of Israelis see Israel’s achievements in the fields of medicine and health as moderately good or good, and 61 percent similarly rate education and science.
The survey was conducted by telephone on April 18-19 and included 600 respondents, who constitute a representative national sample of the adult population aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1 percent at a confidence level of 95 percent.