Poll: Palestinian Support For Terrorism Increases
News
April 22, 2008

 


 


One Half of Palestinians support terrorism


 



 

A new poll has found that the number of Palestinians who support attacks against Israelis continues to rise and more than half of them favor suicide bombings. The poll, published this weekend, held over April 8-13 and conducted by the Palestinian Arab, eastern-Jerusalem based Jerusalem Media & Communications Center (JMCC), covered 1,190 Palestinians from Judea, Samaria and Gaza, shows that the percentage of Palestinians who support “resistance operations” against Israeli targets rose from 43.1% in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now. (Khaled Abu Toameh, ‘Palestinians’ backing for terror rises,’ Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2008).

 


Several past polls indicate that Palestinian past support for terror has, at least on occasion, been higher in the past than the 43.1% in September 2006 that the JMCC cited here, including according to its own September 2006 poll (cited below in bold):


 


·        March 2008: Palestinian Center for Policy & Survey Research: 64% of Palestinians support rocket attacks upon Israeli cities.


·        September 2006: Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the PCPSR: 57% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians.


·        September 2006: JMCC: Nearly half of all Palestinian Arabs (48%) support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.


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


·        July 2006: JMCC: 60.4% support the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks upon Israel from northern Gaza.


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


·        March 2006: Palestinian Center for Policy & Survey Research: 52% support terrorist attacks upon Israeli civilians.


 


ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This latest poll, as so often, merely confirms the results of innumerable earlier polls, some of which we have cited above, showing Palestinians do approve of terrorism that targets innocent Jewish men, women and children. These findings, like those of dozens of other polls showing Palestinian attitudes towards Israel, negotiations and violence, simply underscore the fact that concessions to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA), especially concessions leading to Palestinian statehood, would only help to produce 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 is 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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