Poll: Overwhelming Majority of Palestinian Arabs Approve of Recent Jerusalem Massacre & Other Acts of Palestinian Terrorism
News
March 19, 2008

A new Palestinian poll shows that 84% of Palestinians approve of the March 6 terrorist attack on the Mercaz Harav seminary in Jerusalem in which 8 people, mainly teenagers, were murdered and a further 40 wounded. The poll, carried out by Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, interviewed 1,270 Palestinians and had a margin of sampling error of minus three percentage points (Ethan Bronner, ‘Poll Shows Most Palestinians Favor Violence Over Talks,’ New York Times, March 19, 2008).


 


Other poll results:


 



· 64% of Palestinians support the rocket attacks upon Israeli cities and towns like Sderot and Ashkelon launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

 

· 75% of Palestinians oppose continued negotiations between Israel and the PA.

 

· 47% of Palestinians prefer Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh as PA president, while 46% prefer Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas.


 


 


Other results from recent Palestinian polls 2003-2007:


 



· February 2007: 75% of Palestinian Arabs do not think that Israel has a right to exist; 70% of Palestinian Arabs support a one-state solution in which Jews would be a minority, not a two-state solution with a Palestinian Arab state living peacefully alongside Israel (Near East Consulting (NEC) poll, February 12-15, 2007, ‘NEC 12-15 February Poll: 75% of Palestinians do not think that Israel has the right to exist,’ Independent Media Review Analysis, February 16, 2007).

 

· September 2006: 67% of Palestinian Arabs oppose Hamas recognizing Israel (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) poll, September 14-16, 2006).

 

· September 2006: 57% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians; 75% support the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in a bid to obtain the release of jailed Palestinians terrorists; 63% are inspired by the Lebanese Islamist terror group Hizballah and seek to emulate it (Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) poll, September 2006).

 

· September 2006: 61.3% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians; 52.5% support rocket attacks upon Israeli population centers (Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah University, September 7-9, 2006).

 

· June 2006: 56% of Palestinians support terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians (Palestinian Center for Policy & Survey Research (PCPSR) poll, June 2006).

 

· February 2006: 83.3% of the Palestinian Arabs oppose dropping the legally and morally baseless so-called ‘right of return’ of refugees and their millions of descendants to Israel and reject substitute solutions to the refugee issue (Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) poll, February 16-20, 2006).

 

· February 2006: 56.2% support terrorism against Israeli civilians (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) poll, February 8-12, 2006).

 

· December 2005: 51% of Palestinian Arabs oppose the disarming of terrorist groups; 82% support the absorption of members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad into the PA. (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, December 6-8, 2005).

 

· December 2005: 69% of Palestinians see terrorism as legitimate; 65% support Al-Qaeda actions in the USA and Europe (Fafo poll, December 22, 2005).

 

· October 2005: 60% of Palestinian Arabs oppose the PA disarming the terrorist groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Bir Zeit University poll, October 2005).

 

· December 2004: 66% of Palestinian Arabs oppose the PA disarming the terrorist groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Bir Zeit University poll, December 2004).

 

· April 2003: 75.6% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorism against Israeli civilians (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) poll, April 2003).



ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This poll, unfortunately, merely confirms the results of innumerable earlier polls, some of which we have cited above, showing Palestinians to approve of terrorism that targets innocent Jewish men, women and children and rejecting peace or co-existence with Israel as a Jewish state. In these circumstances, it is clear that a Palestinian state would be nothing more that the world’s newest terrorist state. It would be folly for either Israel or the United States to support the establishment of a Palestinian state under such conditions and it noteworthy that the former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon, former CIA director R. James Woolsey and pre-eminent Middle East historian Bernard Lewis have all come out in opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”


 

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