JERUSALEM: Most Palestinians believe the renewal of peace talks with Israel was a mistake and over two thirds think the negotiations will fail, according to a poll released yesterday.
Just over half the respondents -- 50.5 percent -- said the decision by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to resume US-brokered peace talks with Israel in late July was a mistake, while 33.8 percent said it was the right decision, according to the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre (JMCC) survey. And only one in five — or 20.8 percent — believed the talks would yield an agreement, while 68.7 percent expected them to fail.
The percentage of those who see negotiations as the best way to end the Israeli occupation and establish a state stood at 32.3 percent, down from 36.8 registered in the previous survey in March.
Three in 10 respondents — or 29.3 percent — said they believed the best way to achieve such goals would be through “armed resistance,” while 27.1 percent favoured a strategy of “non-violent resistance.”
Some 49.3 percent of those questioned said that Palestinian security coordination with Israel should be stopped, while just over a third - 36.3 percent - said it should continue. Were parliamentary elections to be held now, 37.1 percent said they would vote for Abbas’s Fatah party, while 18.8 percent would back the rival Hamas movement, which rules Gaza.
The poll questioned 1,200 adults in the West Bank and Gaza between November 13-17 and has an error margin of 3.0 percent.
The JMCC, established in 1988 by a group of Palestinian journalists, was the first Palestinian organisation to conduct regular opinion polls of Palestinian political attitudes, and these surveys have served as a critical benchmark on the health of the peace process for nearly two decades.Agencies
