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the israeli and palestinian publics 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 chapter four The Israeli and Palestinian Publics Differences and Similarities The concept of public opinion, as outlined in the previous chapter, is also useful for placing our comparative research in its proper context. It directs us to differences, but also similarities, between Israeli and Palestinian public opinion along its most fundamental dimensions: information and knowledge, norms and values, expectations, and political participation. These are most significant to understanding their two-level game. Information and Knowledge The extent to which both publics are informed on daily affairs and political developments is crucial to their performance as players in the domestic political game. Indirect indicators commonly used in this context are literacy rates and educational level. Although literacy rates in both societies are quite similar, 95 percent in Israel and 90 percent in the Palestinian Authority,1 Israelis tend to achieve higher educational levels compared to Palestinians. According to UNESCO’s “Global Education Digest 2005,” the gross enrollment ratio of Israelis in tertiary education programs for the year 2002–2003 was 57 percent compared to 35 percent of Palestinians.2 Similarly our poll data showed 45 percent of Israelis as having partial or full academic education compared to 24 percent of Palestinians.3 A more direct assessment is provided by news media exposure patterns of Israelis and Palestinians. A PSR survey conducted in May 2006 demonstrated that 54 percent of Palestinians consider themselves interested or very interested in politics, and only 22 percent indicated that they were uninterested. Moreover, 79 percent responded that they follow the news 36 palestinian and israeli public opinion often or very often. Israelis similarly report a high interest in politics. In the 2007 Israel Democracy Index, 82 percent reported that they follow politics in the mass media every day or several times a week (Arian, Atmor, and Hadar 2007, p. 92). In our December 2006 poll, 54 percent of Israelis and 30 percent of Palestinians reported to have watched the news almost every day on Israeli or Palestinian television, respectively. Further, 69 percent of Palestinians and 8 percent of Israelis also reported watching the news almost every day on satellite channels such as Al-Jazeera; a relatively small percentage of Israelis (13%) also watch CNN or the BBC almost daily. Israelis are avid radio news consumers, with 74 percent listening to the news twice or more every day. No comparable radio news consumption data are available for Palestinians. As for newspapers, 48 percent of Israelis report reading a newspaper almost daily compared to 13 percent of Palestinians. Only 15 percent of Israelis reported almost never reading a daily newspaper compared to 52 percent of Palestinians. PSR’s May 2006 poll showed that 78 percent of Palestinians consider television as the most trustworthy media, followed by radio (12%) and newspapers (3%). A majority of 53 percent of Palestinians indicated that the Al Jazeera television news broadcast was their most trusted media source. Regarding Internet usage, 9 percent of Palestinians indicated that they use the Internet daily or almost daily. The corresponding figure among Israelis is estimated at 33 percent, according to an April 2006 survey of the Netvision Institute for Internet Studies at Tel Aviv University.4 Thus both publics seem to be highly tuned to the news. Palestinians appear to obtain their current affairs information mainly from television. Israelis are also greatly exposed to television but to radio news as well, and they read significantly more print news than Palestinians, engendering more exposure to in-depth analysis by political experts and commentators. To grasp the Israeli and Palestinian media environment, it is necessary to refer to the differences in the level of media control and journalists’ professional standards in these two societies. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority receives particularly high scores in the “Freedom of the Press” survey conducted by Freedom House, a nonprofit nonpartisan organization. This survey examines the extent to which freedom of the press exists in each country, focusing on legal, political , and economic parameters. In the 2006 survey, Israel ranked 61 with a score of 28, barely managing to be included in the “free” category. The category “Israeli-occupied territories” refers to the performance of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority and obtained a...

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