Palestinians prefer the status quo

Palestinian poll: 56% oppose armed struggle against Israel

Hamas may have won support for their involvement in Shalit deal, but new poll finds that PA President Abbas still has majority vote. JMCC survey reveals West Bank, Gaza attitudes to Israel,US and international community

Elior Levy, YNET

A new poll carried out by the Palestinian Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) reveals that support for Fatah among residents of the Palestinian Authority has not been hurt by the Shalit deal , which was completed between Hamas and Israel last month.

And yet, the Hamas-led Shalit deal still receives wall to wall support – 86% of those questioned expressed their satisfaction with the results of the deal – the satisfaction rate is close to that of the Israeli satisfaction rate with the deal.

In spite of the pessimistic results, the poll revealed that when it comes to the political process, the majority of respondents (56.3%) opposed the resumption of violence against Israel, compared to 45.5% in April 2008. Furthermore, the percentage of supporters of terror operations dropped to 29.3% in this poll, compared with 49.5% in April 2008.

The same trend was found regarding rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, where there was an increase in the percentage of respondents who found them harmful (40.8%), the JMCC poll revealed.

Fatah still trusted

The poll was carried out in the second half of November among a random sample of 1200 people over the age of 18 throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It indicated that notwithstanding the support for Hamas following the Shalit deal, Fatah and President Abbas have maintained their popularity and even increased their ratings when compared with previous polls.

The poll showed that the balance of power between Fatah and Hamas remained the same, with 39.6% of respondents saying they trusted Fatah more compared to (39.2%) in a poll conducted June 2011. Furthermore, 18.6% of respondents said they trusted Hamas.

As for public figures, 25.5% of respondents said they trusted Abbas more than others, compared to 22.2% of the respondents in the June 2011 poll.

The same applied for Ismail Haniyeh, where 13.9% of respondents in this poll said they trusted him more in comparison with 13.6% of respondents in the June poll.

These results may give Fatah the push it needs ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections, which are expected to take place next year.

In response to a question on how the Palestinian leadership’s UN bid affected their position towards Fatah, almost half of the respondents (46.5%) said they were affected positively, while 11.8% said they were affected negatively and 37.1% said they were affected neither positively nor negatively.

All time low

The poll also examined the Palestinians’ stance on the possibility of dissolving the Palestinian Authority due to the negotiation standoff: The majority of respondents (65.8%) said it was necessary to perpetuate and maintain the PA while 22.2% said it should be dissolved.

Moreover, in response to the question about the role of the PA and who it serves more, the majority of respondents (62.7%) said it serves the interests of the Palestinian people while 24.6% said it serves the interests of Israel.

As for the peace process, it seems the Palestinian public is quite pessimistic when it comes to support in the international community: A plurality of respondents (41.6%) said it played a negative role in the peace process while (15.9%) said it played a positive role. Furthermore, (63.5%) of respondents said the Quartet was biased towards Israel while (5.7%) said it was biased towards the Palestinians.

Finally, according to the poll it would seem that relations between the Palestinian Authority and the US are at an all time low as 4.9% of respondents said President Barack Obama’s policy would increase the chances for achieving peace after it had been 9.9% in April 2010, 23.7% in October 2009 and 35.4% in June 2009.