November 1, 2023 | Noon to 1:00 PM EDT
Khalil Shikaki (The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research)
An exploration of the findings of joint Palestinian-Israeli survey research experiments, the Palestinian-Israeli Pulse, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and Tel Aviv University between 2016-2022 indicate that despite the continued decline in the past decade in the willingness to compromise among the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish publics and the increased militancy in both societies, attitudes on peace and the two-state solution can, under the right conditions, be reversed leading to significant reversal of hardline attitudes. The findings of seven such experiments lead to one main policy conclusion: while public opinion among Palestinians and Israeli Jews is clearly not a force for peace, it is, nonetheless, not an impediment to peace. However, as the hardening of attitudes becomes deeper over time, findings of the more recent experiments show that changing attitudes is becoming much more challenging indicating that the conflict is becoming more resilient.