Seventeen percent of Israeli Arabs support Islamic State, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Haifa released Monday.
The poll was included in a larger study by professor Sammy Smooha from May to July of this year and claims that 17 percent of respondents disagree that ISIS is an extremist organization and that they are ashamed of it.
“This means a segment of the Arab public does not agree with the consensus against Islamic State,” says Smooha to the Jerusalem Post. He adds, “some of these people left to fight in Syria.”
The 17 percent includes Arab-Israelis who are Christian, Druze and Muslim. When polling only Muslim Arab-Israelis, the number increases to 18 percent who disagree that ISIS is extremist. However, the most shocking number comes from those Israeli Arab Muslims who have completed higher education, with 20 percent of respondents disagreeing. Radical Islam has a history of not being exclusive to the uneducated. Former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had a degree in civil engineering, while his former deputy and the current head of al-Qaida Ayman al-Zawahiri studied medicine and is a trained surgeon.
Israeli Arabs, as opposed to Palestinians, live and work in Israeli territory just like their fellow Jewish citizens. Israeli Arabs hold seats in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) and while they are exempt from mandatory military service, some voluntarily enlist each year.
There are currently 1.4 million Israeli Arabs living in Israel, making up 18 percent of Israeli citizenry. Based on the poll, this means approximately 238,000 Israeli Arabs do not see ISIS as extremist, nor are they ashamed of the group as Muslims. Israel already faces a significant ISIS threat on its southern border with Egypt from Wilayat al-Sinai, an ISIS affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai desert. In addition, a separate poll conducted among Palestinians by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies shows that 53 percent of those surveyed do not see ISIS as a threat to their home, while 47 percent are opposed to the current objectives of the anti-ISIS campaign.
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