Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Elder of Ziyon
A plurality of Palestinian Arabs support resumption of peace talks with Israel without preconditions - 40.2% versus 25.2% who oppose them. This is at odds with PA policy.
Also a slight plurality believe that Israelis are interested in peace - 45.5% against 44.7%.
One question revealed more the biases of the pollster than the feelings of the people:
When asked “ In case all efforts towards peace have collapsed, which of the following options are most probable to administer Palestinian affairs?” more than one-third 37.4% of Palestinians are for the dismantling the PA and holding the international community responsible for the legal vacuum that will arise, whereas 24.7% are in favor of declaring a Palestinian state and escalating resistance, 34.6% for keeping the “ status quo” with developing new strategies to run Palestinian affairs, and 3.3% say “do not know”.
To the pollster, unilateral declaration of a Palestinian Arab state is obviously going to be accompanied with increased "resistance," not with peace!
The most important result was that over 70% of the respondents expect a third intifada to break out if peace talks "stumble." Which probably means that the chances are very high for a new outbreak of violence if a Palestinian Arab state is declared unilaterally - since that shows that the peace talks have already failed.
