51% Palestinians Believe Rocket Attacks
Support Their Goals
A new poll has shown that Palestinians support continued suicide bombings against Israel by 55.4 percent as compared to 37.6 percent who oppose it. The poll, conducted by Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, also found:
· That 50.8 percent of Palestinian believe that rocket attacks upon Israel from Gaza help Palestinians achieve their goals, as against 20.8 percent who believe such attacks harm the attainment of Palestinian goals;
· If elections were held today, 28.6 percent of Palestinians would vote for Hamas and 27.9 percent of Palestinians would vote for Fateh;
· Similarly, 27.7 percent of Palestinians most trust Hamas while 26 percent most trust Fateh. (Jerusalem Media & Communications Center, Poll No. 67, January 2009).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is often said that Palestinians no longer embrace a program for eliminating Israel, but merely wish to live in their own independent state within the territories Israel captured in 1967. As a result, many conclude that Israel has an obligation to negotiate a peaceful outcome with Palestinians. However, this poll and others show that the majority of Palestinians continue to support unreconstructed terror movements that do not accept Israel‘s existence as well as further suicide bombings and rocket attacks upon Israel. This demonstrates that that Palestinians do continue to embrace Israel‘s elimination.
“One seemingly contradictory finding in the poll showed that 54.8 percent of Palestinians favored setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel, as opposed to 18.4 percent who openly sought a single, bi-national state. However, there is a November 2007 poll which shows something similar (67.1 percent of Palestinians supported ‘the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 occupied territories’) but which also went on to ask the pertinent question – ‘Do you support or reject the creation of two states on the historic land of Palestine (a Palestinian state and Israel)?’ – which most Palestinians (54.3 percent) rejected.
“In short, as we pointed out at the time, most Palestinians do not accept Israel‘s existence as a Jewish state even if they support the idea of establishing a Palestinian state alongside it for now. They simply regard a Palestinian state as a useful step towards one day removing Israel from the region.
“Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) has demonstrated in countless ways that it neither accepts Israel as a Jewish state nor prepares its public for peace with Israel. It is notable that before, during and after last year’s Annapolis conference, Abbas and other senior PA figures explicitly rejected the idea of accepting Israel‘s existence as a Jewish state. Abbas said in 2006 to an Arab audience that “It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.“ Last year, his Fateh party celebrated its 43rd anniversary by producing a new poster showing Israel entirely draped in a Palestinian kfiyyeh called ‘Palestine’ and flanked by a smiling photo of Yasser Arafat and a Kalashnikov rifle. More recently, PA TV has broadcast a music video of a song saying that the Jewish country of Israel was stolen from them. There is no map in PA stationary, publications, atlases or school texts that show Israel as anything other than ‘Palestine.’
“The evidence is clear and stark that Palestinians do not accept Israel‘s existence as an independent Jewish state even when they speak of negotiations and setting up their own state in the territories outside pre-1967 Israel. We must remind anyone and everyone of this fact the next time Israel is called upon to negotiate further concessions to the PA.”
