Published: 7 May 2021
Last updated: 4 April 2025
But Australians’ interest in the Middle-East is low, with only 15% saying they knew much at all about the region, the Crossroads21 survey has found. Michael Visontay reports
AUSTRALIANS HAVE BALANCED sympathies over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and broadly speaking, these views have not changed over the past five years, but their general level of knowledge and interest in the Middle-East is low, the Crossroads21 survey has found.
A substantial majority of 62% of respondents indicated their sympathies lie ‘equally with both’, 19% favoured Palestinians and 11% favoured Israelis; 9% said they did not know or declined to answer.
In addition, 79% said their views had not changed. Of the small minority who indicated that their views had changed, the shift was modest. A net 5% indicated decreased support of Israel and a net 5% indicated increased support of Palestinians.
However, there was a noticeable difference in sympathies between younger and older repondents. Those aged 18-24 were 25% pro-Palestinian vs 6% pro-Israel, and those aged 25-34 were 21% pro-Palestinian vs 7% pro-Israel.
But all of these findings are set against a very modest level of knowledge and interest in the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the survey found.
A substantial majority, 66%, indicated that they were ‘not at all interested’ or only ‘a little bit interested’ in the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian conflict; only 8% were ‘very interested’ and 24% ‘somewhat interested.’
Only 15% of respondents said they ‘knew something’ or ‘knew a great deal’ about Australian foreign policy towards Israel, while 57% indicated that they knew ‘virtually nothing.’
The 15% sample was then asked for their views on aspects of that policy: “47% agreed with the proposition that ‘the Australian government was not critical enough of Israel’, 22% disagreed, while 31% neither agreed nor disagreed,” Professor Markus said.
