Poll: 40% Israeli Arabs deny Holocaust

2009-05-18 08:39 BJT

JERUSALEM, May 17 (Xinhua) -- About 40.5 percent of Israeli Arabs believe the Holocaust never occurred, the results of a University of Haifa poll showed on Sunday.

The rate is up from 28 percent in 2006 that denied the Holocaust, or the genocide of approximately 6 million European Jews during World War II, according to the poll.

As to the issue of whether Israel should be classified as a Jewish state, 41 percent of those polled responded positively, compared to 65.6 percent in 2003.

In addition, about 53.7 percent of Arab-Israelis recognize the right of Israel to exist as an independent state, compared to 81.1percent who recognized that in 2003.

The Haifa University study, conducted by Professor Sami Samuha in University of Haifa, surveyed about 700 men and women from the Arab-Israeli and Druse sector.

According to the latest data released by Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel's Jewish population stands at 5,593,000, or 75.5 percent of the population, and the Arab population is at 1,498,000, or 20.2 percent of the population.

The survey shows that the positions of Israeli Arabs have radicalized in recent years. Samuha, however, noted that there had been no significant change over the last three years.

Editor: Zhang Pengfei | Source: Xinhua