Most readers believe “lasting peace” is possible for Israel-Palestine
PeaceQuest community is three times more hopeful than general public
Over 150 PeaceQuest community members answered the Peace Poll we launched on October 19. Readers were invited to answer three questions about the Israeli – Palestinian conflict and then compare their answers to results from a Canada-wide survey taken by Leger on Oct 13-15.
The Leger poll was conducted one week after Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians. In the days that followed, Israel launched a bombing campaign on Gaza killing an untold number of Hamas fighters and thousands of civilians.
Here are the questions and PeaceQuest readers’ responses as compared to the Canada-wide poll by Leger.
1. Do you feel you have a good understanding or not about the conflict between Israel and the Palestine?
Nearly all of the PeaceQuest readers who answered felt that they have a good (55%) or very good (42%) understanding about the conflict. This is much higher than Leger poll, which found that half of Canadians say they have a good understanding (13%) or fairly good (36%) of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
2. Thinking about the relationship between Canada and Israel, do you think Canada is not supportive enough of Israel, its support is about right, or it is too supportive of Israel?
As above, a near unanimous sentiment amongst PeaceQuest readers is that Canada is too supportive of Israel (91%), which is very different than the Canadian public.
Leger found that forty percent say that Canada's support of Israel is about right. Only 10 percent (10%) feel that Canada is not supportive enough, and a nearly equal number (16%) say Canada is too supportive of Israel. A third (34%) have no opinion.
3. Do you believe that lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians can or cannot be reached in the future?
Most PeaceQuest readers (57%) felt that a lasting peace can be reached between Israelis and Palestinians. This is much higher that the Canadian public, where only 19% said peace can be reached.
But 30% of PeaceQuest readers are not sure or preferred not to answer, the same as the general public (30%) according to Leger. The Leger poll found half of Canadians (51%) believe that achieving lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the future is not possible.