Posted on 03/31/2004 1:02:01 PM PST by yonif
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, the leading Palestinian polling institute, has disclosed that a majority of Palestinians, 53 percent, support terror attacks against Israeli civilians. This represents a rise in support for terror - last December, 48 percent of respondents in a poll articulated support for terror attacks. In the latest poll, 87 percent of respondents said they favor attacks on Israeli soldiers; 86 percent supported attacks on settlers in the territories.
Just before the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin last week, 27 percent of Palestinians on the Gaza Strip supported Hamas, as opposed to just 23 percent who supported Fatah. By combining survey results from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Ramallah-based Policy and Survey center found that 27 percent of Palestinians in the territories support Fatah, as compared to 20 percent who favor Hamas. A large number of respondents, 40 percent, refused to state a preference between the two movements.
In December 2003, the Center asked the same questions, and found that 26 percent of respondents on the Gaza Strip supported Hamas, as opposed to 24 percent who supported Fatah.
The new survey found that all the Islamic organizations - Hamas, Islamic Jihad and smaller groups - enjoy support of 29 percent of respondents. Once left-wing opposition groups are added to this figure, 35 percent of residents in the territories support forces that oppose the dominant Fatah organization.
For the first time, a public opinion poll in the territories asked respondents the question: "Are you in favor of Hamas conducting diplomatic negotiations with Israel?" This question relates to one of the most pressing issues in Palestinian politics: who is most empowered to represent the Palestinians, the PLO or Hamas? In the new survey, 41 percent of respondents said that they support Hamas conducting negotiations with Israel. A majority, 54 percent, said they oppose such a scenario of Hamas-Israel negotiations.
Center director Prof. Khalil Shikaki emphasized to Haaretz Tuesday that the poll was conducted before the Yassin assassination. He said: "There is a continuing trend of increasing support for Hamas, and the weakening of Fatah and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and, clearly, the assassination and Israeli military activity will accelerate this trend."
In an article published Tuesday in The New York Times, Shikaki called on the U.S. government to promote elections in PA territories prior to the implementation of the separation plan, so as to restore legitimacy to the PA.
The new survey also probed Palestinian responses to Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and dismantle some settlements on the West Bank. A large majority (73 percent) of respondents said they welcome the separation plan; on the other hand, two-thirds of respondents said they viewed the plan as vindication of the "armed struggle" against Israel. Also, 61 percent of respondents said that they think that, "Sharon is not serious, and that he will not carry out the plan." Of the respondents, 58 percent thought that the PA ought to negotiate with Israel about the withdrawal; 38 percent said that Israel should pull-out unilaterally, without negotiations.
Israel's strikes at Palestinian targets are generally, if not always provoked by Palestinian terrorists who strike at Israelis.
That said, Israel's assassination of Yassin was seen in Palestinian eyes as a declaration of war. I'm not mourning Yassin, but I hope Sharon realizes what he's getting himself into.
I was mystified by this until realizing that they had lost their "hate-support network". No one was around harping on the Jews, even in the Islamic Community Centers, and they were totally at a loss to find much else to talk about. They couldn't deal with Muslims who were trying to build productive lives with no compunctions toward martyrdom. The son was at a total loss. Eventually everyone but him packed up for "Palestine" to live hatefully ever after.
A simple look at the map suffices to cure that particular misconception for most people.
The map shows a gigantic swath of territory stretching from the wall of China to the west coast of Africa called the muslim world and a tiny sliver of land called Israel which you'd never find unless you knew exactly where to look, and the slammites are never going to stop crying until they have the tiny sliver too.
The basic question is, why would anybody feel sorry for them (the slammites)?
The Palestinian territories represent a failed state. They're run by competing groups of mob bosses. The world should just deal with them, so their cancer doesn't spread to homicide bombings in US shopping malls.
Er, that should be 'I doubt these poll results surprise anyone."
No they don't. They were doing this starting in 1929 to the Jews, where there was no Israel. Their ideology calls for the murder of non-Muslims. The war is between Israel and an entity which seeks on destroying it.
First of all it was no "assasination." That is a political term. It was the killing or elimination of Yassin. Israel did what the US is trying to do to Osama. Hamas will continue to strike terror at Israelis, no matter what Israel does. That said, Israel's elimination of Yassin is not the reason more attacks will be coming. They always attack. Would you say that you hope Bush knows what he is getting into by going after Osama?
The most notable trait of this family is the intense hatred that comes out of their mouths whenever the topic even remotely touches upon politics, and that hatred was not only directed at Iraelis but at America too. The new wife had spent only a few months in Chicago before she was complaining that "they do everything wrong in this country." The husband said once "America is the most racist country in the world," and at another time that Americans won't switch to the metric system because "they think they are better than everybody else."
Up to this point (the first two of three 2 hour installments), the documentary has covered years prior to Sept. 11, 2001. I'm hoping that tonight the 911 will come into play.
There are certainly some sympathetic aspects to this family, and I don't mean to condemn them outright, but what I found disturbing and troubling is the way they combine mundane leftwing bromides which they clearly don't really believe in with decidedly violent rhetoric towards their enemies. The matriarch of the clan, whether or not one sympathizes with the many misfortunes she's suffered in life, has without question taught hate to her children, a simpleminded hate no doubt, but hate just the same.
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