We are issuing the following press release, drafted two years ago, regarding detailed polling of prevailing Palestinian Arab attitudes towards Israel, Jews, terrorism, peace and so on, as an illustration of the regrettable and tragic reality that little to nothing has changed in the intervening two years. 

All these attitudes are all-too-faithfully represented by the words and deeds of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA). (Indeed, earlier this year, Abbas’ Fatah, the dominant faction controlling the PA, reaffirmed its utter opposition to recognizing Israel and moreover disclaimed any suggestion that it had ever done so).

Abbas also urged Arabs to spill their blood and fight Jews falsely claiming Israel wants to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque. And he continues to pay Arabs to murder Jews while calling those murderers heroes and martyrs. 

In the face of these still-unchanged realities, our principled opposition to creating a Palestinian Arab state, which would, in the circumstances, only prove a terrorist, destabilizing beggar state and mortal threat to Israel, remains vindicated.

Poll: 60% Of Palestinians Support Terror Attacks Upon Israelis Within 1949 Lines

A Palestinian poll has shown that a clear majority of 60% of Palestinian Arabs support terror attacks upon Israeli civilians within the 1949 armistice lines. The survey, carried out by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research and published on April 4, 2016, found that 60% of Palestinian Arabs support “armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel,” 56% support a return to an armed intifada, and 65% believe that if an armed intifada were to develop from current tensions and violence, rather than persisting with negotiations, it would be beneficial for Palestinian Arab interests.

In other findings, the poll also showed that:

• A plurality of Palestinian Arabs believe that armed violence is the most effective way to establish a Palestinian state. 

• 65% of Palestinian Arabs oppose current security efforts made by the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop terror attacks against Israel and contain the violence, while only a mere 30% support such efforts. 

• 58% of Palestinian Arabs support stabbing attacks upon Israel civilians.

• A slim majority of Palestinian Arabs support creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel – 51% against 48% opposing, though mostly not as a final settlement: only 39% support accepting Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, while 60% oppose it.

• Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh is more popular than Fatah/PA president Mahmoud Abbas and would win an electoral contest between them by eleven percentage points (52% for Haniyeh against 41% for Abbas), whereas an electoral competition between Haniyeh and Fatah’s imprisoned terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti (who is serving five life terms for murder convictions) would  result in Barghouti wining by eighteen percentage points (57% for Barghouti against 39% for Haniyeh)

• A majority of Palestinian Arabs (52%) believe that Israel intends to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock upon Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and build a synagogue in their place. (In reality, non-Muslim activity on Temple Mount is drastically restricted and non-Muslim prayer completely forbidden under a status quo that has been in place for decades). (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 59, 17––19 March, 2016).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein  said, “The findings in this poll are familiar to anyone who has followed Palestinian polling data over the years: as in previous years, most Palestinian Arabs continue to support terrorism and various forms of violence against Israel; oppose Oslo obligations upon the PA to combat and stop terrorism, while only a minority of Palestinian Arabs would accept Israel as a Jewish state and thus be actually reconciled to concluding a final peace settlement with Israel.

“Additionally, the finding that a majority of Palestinian Arabs believe that Israel is plotting the destruction of Muslim sanctuaries atop Jerusalem’s Temple Mount demonstrates only that Palestinian Arab society has largely absorbed vicious, PA-sanctioned anti-Jewish propaganda depicting Jews as malevolent beings who seek to harm Muslims, which is of course perhaps the most profound cause of the continuing war they wage against Israel’s existence.”