Palestinian Pulse

Charles Paul Freund | June 21, 2005

In poll results distributed by email this week, the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) finds that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians supports the current "calm" with Israel.

According to the PCPO, 76.5 percent of those polled "Support at different degrees the continuation of the calm with the Israelis." (That is, more than 28 percent "strongly support" it, while 48 percent "somewhat support" it.) The polls also found that 73.5 percent of Palestinians "Support in different degrees the call of Abu Mazin upon Hamas to abandon the violence" against Israel.

According to the PCPO, 37.2 percent of those polled said that if parliamentary elections were held that day, they would vote for Fatah candidates, while 25 percent said they would support Hamas. The Palestinian electorate is splintered among a dozen political groups.

Polling took place June 6-11, and included "965 Palestinian adults over 18 years . . . representing the various demographic models of the Palestinian society in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip." Women made up 47.1 percent of the respondents. The margin of error was 3.18 percent.

Comments

|6.21.05 @ 4:53PM|#

These numbers don't sound that good to me. It looks like about a quarter of Palestinian Arabs still want to push Israel into the sea. That's more than enough to cause trouble for years to come.

|6.21.05 @ 6:06PM|#

The Real Bill,
I'm sure you'd find similar levels of support in lots of the surrounding Arab countries as well and they've been quiet (militarily) for decades.

|6.21.05 @ 7:35PM|#

When Arabs (Muslims) are able to accept Jews as fellow human beings, then there will be peace. Hate and antagonism started with the start of Islam; read the holy book...

|6.21.05 @ 7:39PM|#

Emil,
And how does this makes the Koran unique among holy books?

|6.21.05 @ 8:31PM|#

I think Mo's got you there Emil.

|6.22.05 @ 9:48AM|#

"When Arabs (Muslims) are able to accept Jews as fellow human beings, then there will be peace."

Arabs (Muslims) accept other Arabs and Muslims as fellow human beings and there have been wars.

There may be actualy issues involved beyond one's simplisitic fantasies of religous hatred.

And btw where are Jews defined as non-humans in the Koran?

|6.22.05 @ 10:57AM|#

Emil, you might be right about Arabs accepting Israel, but the Jews must learn to accept the rest of the world as human beings. Doesn't the Talmud say: "Ha-Tov sheh b'goyim harug"? (The best Gentile is a killed Gentile.)

|6.22.05 @ 4:07PM|#

Emil Schafer:

When Arabs (Muslims) are able to accept Jews as fellow human beings, then there will be peace.

Peace is unlikely and justice is impossible until the occupation ends. We can do our part by getting our government to quit giving the Israeli government our tax money to maintain the occupation.

|6.22.05 @ 6:24PM|#

Sharon's support of the forced separation of Israel's own Arab citizens may be understood as evidence of the influence of Israel's religious nut-balls. The Sharon government actually supported racist "Jews Only" housing laws on government land!

http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/article.php?sid=1779

To understand the background of the racist, fundamentalist Jewish religious extremism that Israeli polity is currently gripped by, see the fascinating: Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak and also Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel by Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky. Shahak was a non-leftist human rights activist and a a Nazi concentration camp survivor.

http://tinyurl.com/ao495

http://tinyurl.com/74jj3


If we want to wash our hands of this nightmare, we should ask congress to quit giving our money to the Israeli government:

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Our government also gives half a billion a year to the thug Jordanian regime as a pay off to the Israeli government for non-aggression. The regime's many transgressions against decency include anti-Jewish discrimination laws.

|6.22.05 @ 6:52PM|#

..."Anti-Jewish discrimination laws"- To be clear, the Jordanian regime has laws which discriminate against Jews.