Majority of Israelis believe moving U.S. embassy will escalate violence: polls

JERUSALEM, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Some 61 percent of Israelis believe that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem will ignite an outbreak of violence against Israel among Palestinians, recent polls reported.

Nevertheless, 69 percent of the respondents think that even in light of the expectation of violence, Israel should not ask the United States to postpone the move, according to the monthly Peace Index of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and Tel Aviv University published recently.

In the Arab public, 77.5 percent favor deferment of relocating the embassy.

The index also showed that 59 percent of the Jewish and 75 percent of the Arab public do not believe Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed to be innocent in an ongoing corruption case, despite the fact that the polls indicated that the majority of the public support Netanyahu.

The index said that public trust in the professionalism of the law enforcement authorities conducting the investigations on the prime minister is divergent, as 50.5 percent of the Jewish public show trust, while 45.4 percent do not.

As for the Attorney-General Mandelblit, who will have to decide whether or not to indict Netanyahu, 56 percent believe that his decision will be professional, while 33 percent disagree.

Meanwhile, 42 percent of the public think that Netanyahu should not resign even if he is indicted, the index added.

The IDI said that this month's survey was conducted by telephone and internet on March 13-14, involving 600 respondents. Enditem