A third of Israelis describe Jewish rioters involved in recent violence in the West Bank village of Kusra as “Israeli terrorists,” according to a survey released Monday by the Jewish People Policy Institute.
Coupled with another 18% who called them “nationalist criminals,” the results demonstrate the degree to which the rioters, whose actions have roiled Israel’s relations with its allies, including the Trump administration, are outliers in Israel, JPPI President Yedidia Stern said.
“The survey shows that support among Israelis for the Jewish rioters in the West Bank is truly negligible, at just 5%,” Stern said in a release accompanying the poll. “More than half the public judges them very harshly, as terrorists or criminals, while others view them with varying degrees of severity. This represents an unusually broad consensus in Israel’s polarized society.”
Only 13% of the respondents chose one of the two most lenient descriptions: “young people who sometimes go too far” or “the salt of the earth.”
The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under pressure from the Trump administration and European nations to crack down on the rioters. Netanyahu has until recently resisted serious action, mindful that a significant portion of his coalition includes far-right parties sympathetic to varying degrees with the rioters. Earlier this month, Netanyahu ordered some of the outposts associated with the rioters removed.
Left, center, right differ sharply on labeling rioters
Views on the rioters differed according to political affiliation. Sixty-three percent of respondents on the left described the rioters as “Israeli terrorists,” compared with 49% in the center and just 3% on the right.
Arab Israelis were also more likely to use the term, at 55%, compared with 27% of Jewish Israelis.
The survey referred to a recent incident in Kusra in which dozens of masked Israelis arrived in pickup trucks, threw stones at Palestinian residents and barricaded themselves inside a Palestinian home while members of the family were still inside, according to the Israeli military. Several Palestinians were wounded, and the rioters fled when security forces arrived. No arrests were made.
Huckabee condemns Kusra incident as a “horrific act of terror”
The incident came weeks after another confrontation in Kusra in which Israeli settlers set up an unauthorized outpost beside Palestinian homes. US Ambassador Mike Huckabee condemned that episode at the time as a “horrific act of terror” meant to “intimidate and harass” families.
The survey was conducted September 1-3 among 663 Jewish respondents and 206 Arab respondents and weighted to represent Israel’s adult population. JPPI did not list a margin of error.