Arab opinion strongly negative on ISIL while 86 % renounce official recognition of Israel: Survey

The result of the annual Arab Opinion Index (AOI) survey showed that 89% of the participants expressed negative and very negative views about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while only 2% expressed “very positive” views of ISIL. Three percent were “positive to some extent”. The number of people having negative views about ISIL have increased from 85% in 2014 to 89% in 2015 and 2016, while the number of those having positive views have declined by 50% from 4% to 2% during the same period.

Overwhelming majority of the respondents (99%) said they know ISIL but 66% of them follow its news and 33% do not follow.  The fifth edition of Arab Opinion Index 2016 was announced yesterday at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies by Dr Mohammad Almasri, Executive Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and Coordinator of the Arab Opinion Index.

The survey was based on face-to-face interviews with 18,310 respondents in 12 Arab countries namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania.

The survey samples also ensure fair representation of various population segments with an overall margin of error between +/- 2 to 3%, said Almasri presenting the survey outcomes.

The Arab Opinion Index (AOI), the largest public opinion survey in the Mena region, was conducted by a team of 840 surveyors.  They spent 45,000 hours for face-to-face interviews crossing a total of 760,000km across the population clusters sampled.

Attitudes towards ISIL are defined by political considerations not by religious beliefs because positive and negative views are found equal frequently between respondents who identify themselves as “Very religious”, “Religious” and “Not religious”. As explained by Dr. Mohammad Almasri, Coordinator of the AOI, only around 20% of respondents attributed its popularity to religious factors.

When respondents given the chance to name their first preferred method to defeat ISIL and terrorist groups; 17% suggested the intensification of military efforts; 15% suggested “ending foreign intervention”, 14% proposed “resolving the Palestinian Cause” as their first preferred method to defeat ISIL and similar terrorist bodies. Finally, 12% suggested ending the Syrian conflict to defeat terrorist groups. In broad terms, the Arab public supports taking a comprehensive set of political, economic, social and military measures to confront terrorism. The survey covered eight areas including the general situation of the Arab citizens, opinions on the performance of the states and governments, public attitudes towards democracy, political and civil society participations, the role of religion in public and political affairs, and public views about ISIL. Moreover the survey assessed the public attitudes towards common factors among Arab nations where 77% believe that the various peoples of the Arab region constitute a “single nation”, with some varying differences.

Regarding Arab Spring the survey showed that he Arab public is neatly divided as 45% agreed with the statement that the Arab Spring “will achieve its aims”, despite acknowledging present setbacks, compared to 39% who agreed with the opposing statement, that “the Arab Spring has come to an end”, and that the old regimes have returned to power. 52% of respondents stated that they were worried, to varying extents, about the rise to power of such groups, compared to 42% who stated that they were not worried about Islamists coming to power. By comparison, 59% of respondents expressed their concerns/worries of the rise to power of non-religious/secular groups, while 33% stated they had no worries of secularists coming to power.

The 2016 poll report which came in more than 400 pages; reflected negative views about policies of regional and global powers for instance 75% of the Arab public has negative views about the United States policies towards Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Similarly, around 66% of Arabs view negatively the policies of both Russia and Iran towards the same set of Arab countries.

The United States in particular was also identified as the greatest single threat to collective Arab security: 67% of Arabs named both the US or Israel as the countries which posed the greatest threat to collective Arab security, and 10% of respondents designated Iran.

In a similar question, 89% of Arabs agreed that Israel is a threat to the stability of the Arab region; 81% agreed that US policies destabilized the region; and 73% regarded Iranian policies as destabilizing. The comparative figures for Russian and French policies were 69% and 59%, respectively. In sum, there is a firmly entrenched public view considering Israeli policies as destabilizing to the region.

This was in line with a widespread negative view of Israel, with the overwhelming majority (86%) of Arabs renouncing official recognition of Israel by their home countries.

Respondents offered a variety of answers when asked to define the single most pressing problem facing their country; where 44%, mentioned economic, 20% governmental performance. A large majority of Arabs (72%) expressed views supporting democracy, compared to 22% opposing. Similarly, 77% agreed that a multi-party democracy was a good form of government for their home countries. In contrast, majorities varying in size from 61% to 75% expressed their opposition to a set of other forms of government,

Internet penetration has increased markedly over the years of the AOI, with 61% of respondents said they are internet regular users, compared to 37% who do not use the internet. Amongst internet users, 82% have accounts on Facebook; 33% on Twitter while another 32% on Instagram.

Meanwhile, 70% of social media users reported using their social media accounts to obtain political news and information while 68% use their social media accounts to express their views on political events, and 51% to “engage with” political affairs.