Israelis: Until Terror Stops – No Talks With PA
A new joint Israeli-Palestinian poll has shown that a clear majority of Palestinians – 54 percent – support terror attacks upon Israelis inside Israel, as opposed to only 42 percent who oppose such attacks. The poll, jointly conducted by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) in Ramallah, between March 1-7, 2009, also found that only 40% of Israelis support a return to Palestinian-Israeli final status negotiations before cessation of Palestinian violence, while 58% oppose such talks. (Press Release, ‘Joint Israeli-Palestinian Poll, March 2009,’ Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, March 15, 2009).
The Palestinian majority support for terrorism against Israel is similar to a January 2009 Jerusalem Media & Communications Center poll that found that 55.4 percent of Palestinians support continued suicide bombings against Israel, as against 37.6 percent who oppose it. (Jerusalem Media & Communications Center, Poll No. 67, January 2009).
Other polls showing Palestinian majority support for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians:
· March 2008: 83.5% 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; 63.6% support rocket attacks on Israeli towns, as against 32.6% who oppose it. (Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll, March 2008).
· 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: 56.2% support terrorism against Israeli civilians (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) poll, February 8-12, 2006).
· 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).
· April 2003: 75.6% of Palestinian Arabs support terrorism against Israeli civilians (Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) poll, April 2003).
Previous polls showing majority Israeli opposition to concessions to the Palestinian Authority:
· July 2008: 73% of Jerusalem’s residents (including Israeli Arabs) opposed the division of the city with physical barriers, as opposed to only 27% who were willing to support it. (Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll, July 23, 2008, ‘Polls: 73%:27% Jerusalem residents oppose physical separation in city in wake of attacks,’ Independent Media Review & Analysis, July 24, 2008).
· October 2007: 53% of Israelis opposed U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority (PA), only 16% supported it. (Brains’ Trust (Maagar Mochot) Research Institute, October 2007).
· October 2007: A clear majority of Jewish Israelis – 59% to 33% – oppose, even in return for a peace agreement, Israel handing over to the PA various Arab neighborhoods in the eastern half of Jerusalem (Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University poll, October 2007).
· July 2007: 56% of Palestinians support rocket attacks on Israel, while only 44% oppose them. (Fafo poll, July 2007).
· May 2007: 53% of Israelis opposed withdrawals from Judea and Samaria, even in return for a “real peace.” (Dahaf Institute poll for the Knesset Channel, May 2007).
· March 2007: 72% of Israelis opposed uprooting Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria; 71 percent believed that the Palestinian Arabs’ goal is destroying Israel, not a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel; only 28% of Israelis supported the ‘land for peace’ formula, while 58 percent opposed it. (INSS, previously Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, poll, March 2007).
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, as the evidence shows, this latest poll and several others over recent years 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.
“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 the 2007 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.’ In 2007, 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 consistent Palestinians majorities that favor continued terrorism is ample proof of the reality that Palestinians have yet to accept Israel.
“This latest poll result also confirms many others that show that most Israelis today are reluctant to proceed with any further negotiations or concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and do not believe that concessions, even up to and including the setting up of a Palestinian state, would bring the long awaited peace for which Israelis yearn.”
