MIDDLE EAST : Knesset Poll Says ‘Devil of Racism’ Infiltrating Israel

A significant number of Israelis believe that Jewish vigilante attacks on Palestinians are justified in view of the continuing unrest in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to an opinion survey released Thursday.

Although 56% said they do not support attacks by vigilante groups in reprisal for Palestinian violence, the 39% who felt them justified are a matter of concern, Israeli liberals warned, in view of recent threats by religious nationalists to re-establish a “Jewish underground” to oppose Palestinian autonomy and eventual independence.

Alarmed by what they regard as inadequate protection from the army and police, Israeli settlers on the West Bank have in recent months attacked Palestinian residents in half a dozen towns and villages in apparent revenge for earlier attacks upon them by Palestinian guerrillas.

In the most serious incident, a man was killed and 12 people were wounded by a grenade thrown into the crowded meat market in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City last month; police are still seeking a Jewish man, believed to belong to an underground group, in connection with the crime.

About 28% of those in the survey for the Israeli Parliament went further and declared their support for a campaign, advocated by some ultra-Zionists such as the followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, to drive Arabs from both Israel and the occupied territories.

But two-thirds of those questioned said they do not agree with the use of pressure to force out the 900,000 Arabs who live in Israel--constituting almost a fifth of its population of 5.2 million--and the nearly 2 million Palestinian Arabs who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

While reflecting minority opinion, these trends demonstrate a clear, persistent “racism” in Israeli society, said Avraham Burg, chairman of Parliament’s Education Committee, which commissioned the survey.

“We can no longer ignore the fact that in Israel we have racism and hatred of foreigners similar to what is going on today in Germany and France,” he added as he released the survey results. “You cannot fight anti-Semitism before you fight the internal hatred in your own society.”

The telephone survey was conducted last week among 501 Israeli Jews aged 18 and older, Knesset officials said; the margin of error was 4.3 percentage points.

Noting the deep concern Israelis feel about the resurgence of European anti-Semitism and the demands by the government here that German and French authorities take firmer actions to curtail it, Burg said that Israel itself, particularly its schools, must “take the devil of racism by its horns.”