Globes reported that latest survey finds 51% of respondents would boycott businesses that employ people who criticize the IDF.

Nearly a quarter of Israeli Jewish consumers are boycotting Arab businesses, a poll released on Tuesday found.

The market in Nazareth, July 9, 2014. – Photo: Eyal Toueg

Some 24 percent of respondents said they refuse to patron Arab shops, down from 47 percent during a similar Geocartography poll conducted during the Gaza war, Globes reported.

However, the figures should be taken with a grain of salt: According to the poll, only 29 percent of respondents said they did in fact boycott Arab businesses during the war, meaning that 18 percent out of the 47 percent polled during the hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza did not abide by their professed convictions.

According to Globes, the new survey found that 51 percent said they would boycott businesses that refused to fire employees who spoke out against the Israeli army, down from 57 percent during the war.

Globes reported that Arab supermarkets, which suffered a severe drop in sales during the war, have yet to fully recuperate, a month after the war. According to a large supplier, sales are down by 10 percent compared to before the conflict.

However, the owner of the Big Zol supermarket chain, Yusef Askar, told Globes that though sales dropped by 50 percent during the war in his Shfaram branch, half of whose customers are Jews, the tide has since turned.

“Our shops are in the Jewish neighborhoods, and only one shop is in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews stopped coming to the Shfaram branch, and came back when the war was over,” he told Globes.

View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.618516