Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
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Poll: Majority of Israel's Jews back gag on rights groups - Haaretz - Israel News
If you listen closely enough, you can hear what remains of Orwell's mouth throwing out expletives.
More than half of Jewish Israelis think human rights organizations that expose immoral behavior by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely, and think there is too much freedom of expression here, a recent survey found.
The survey, commissioned by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University, will be presented Wednesday at a conference on the limits of freedom of expression.
The pollsters surveyed 500 Jewish Israelis who can be considered a representative sample of the adult Jewish population.
They found that 57.6 percent of the respondents agreed that human rights organizations that expose immoral conduct by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely.
Slightly more than half agreed that "there is too much freedom of expression" in Israel.
The poll also found that most of the respondents favor punishing Israeli citizens who support sanctioning or boycotting the country, and support punishing journalists who report news that reflects badly on the actions of the defense establishment
Another 82 percent of respondents said they back stiff penalties for people who leak illegally obtained information exposing immoral conduct by the defense establishment.
We say Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, but in Europe they are beginning to think of us otherwise," he said.
Virtually all the respondents, 98 percent, said freedom of expression was important, but the picture changed when the questions got into the details.
Regarding human rights groups' rights to operate freely, responses varied based upon the respondents' reported political views. Of those who said they were right-wing, 76 percent said human rights groups should not have the right to freely publicize immoral conduct on Israel's part.
Another 43 percent said the media should not report information confirmed by Palestinian sources that could reflect poorly on the Israeli army. Fifty-eight percent of respondents opposed harsh criticism of the country, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2003.
If you listen closely enough, you can hear what remains of Orwell's mouth throwing out expletives.