Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1999, pages 60-61

Public Opinion

Poll Shows Palestinians Support Peace Process Despite Pessimism

By Ella Bancroft

While Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was being lionized by the Clinton administration and the Republican leadership in Washington this week, a new poll showed he has growing but cautious support among his constituents at home for continued participation in the “peace process.”

The monthly poll conducted by the Nablus-based Center for Palestinian Research and Studies between Nov. 12 and 14, two weeks after the signing of the Wye Memorandum in Washington, DC, showed that the majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who support the peace process had risen to 75 percent from 66 percent a month earlier. It was the highest level of support recorded since December 1996.

Support for the Wye agreement itself was 59 percent, with 39 percent opposing it. A slight majority of 51 percent believe that the Palestinian negotiators could have achieved a better agreement, while 41 percent do not. Among the total sample of 1,321 Palestinian respondents 18 years and older, of whom 828 were in the West Bank and 493 in the Gaza Strip, support for the agreement was considerably higher in Gaza (65 percent) than in the West Bank (55 percent). It also was higher among non-refugees (62 percent) than among refugees (53 percent). Support decreased as education level increased, with 65 percent support among illiterates and 43 percent support among holders of BA degrees.

Palestinian respondents were considerably less optimistic about results of the agreement. A majority of 57 percent thinks the Israelis gain more than the Palestinians from it, while only 18 percent think the Palestinians gain more. An overwhelming majority of 78 percent thinks the Palestinian Authority will implement the agreement, but only 19 percent think the Israeli government will implement it.

A majority of 54 percent oppose the security arrangements contained in the agreement, while 64 percent fear that their implementation may lead to internal armed conflict among Palestinians. Perhaps for this reason a majority of 53 percent opposes the resort to violence against Israelis as a means of resisting the Wye agreement, while 41 percent support the resort to violence against Israelis. It is noteworthy that support for violence against Israelis dropped 10 percentage points from 51 percent only a month earlier.

As for using violence against the Palestinian Authority to express opposition to the agreement, an overwhelming 87 percent disapproved, and only 9 percent approved.

Nevertheless, a majority of 54 percent still does not believe that an Israeli-Palestinian agreement on final status issues is feasible. Similarly, the percentage of those who believe that the peace process will lead to establishment of a Palestinian state has decreased to 45 percent from 49 percent a month earlier.

Signing of the agreement brought about no significant change in the percentage of those who support unilateral establishment of a Palestinian state in May 1999. It moved to 46 percent from 45 percent a month earlier, while the percentage of those preferring to wait for a final Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the subject moved up to 47 percent from 44 percent a month earlier. It is worth noting that support for the unilateral establishment of statehood is higher in the Gaza Strip (53 percent) than in the West Bank (40 percent).

The general conclusion that a majority of Palestinians support Yasser Arafat’s continued participation in the peace process, even if they are pessimistic about the results, is supported by responses to other questions in the same poll.

Asked to choose among three named candidates if elections for president of the Palestinian Authority were held today, 45 percent of respondents chose Yasser Arafat of Fatah, 10 percent chose Ahmad Yassin of Hamas, and 7 percent chose independent Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi.

Asked to choose a vice president from a list of eight named candidates, the results were Haidar Abdul Shafi 10.3 percent, Faisal Husseini 7.8 percent, Sa’eb Erikat 7.6 percent, Hanan Ashrawi 7.0 percent, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazin) 6.9 percent, Farouq Kaddumi (Abu Lutuf) 6.7 percent, Ahmad Qurai (Abu Ala’) 5.8 percent, Nabil Sha’ath 3.5 percent.

Similarly, presented with a list of nine possible political parties or groups, respondents chose in order of popularity Fatah (39 percent), Hamas (10.9), Independent Nationalists (4.2), Islamic Jihad (3.6), PFLP (3.0), Independent Islamists (2.9), PPP (1.7), DFLP (0.6), Fida (0.1). Other choices were “none of the above” (31.6 percent) and “others” (1.7 percent).

Summarizing, respondents seemed to favor Yasser Arafat continuing the peace process, at least until May 4, but were pessimistic that it would yield desirable results. They were evenly divided over whether Arafat should or should not declare an independent state on May 4 without waiting further for completion of negotiations.

Other Public Opinion Polls

On the other side of the Green Line, in a poll announced Nov. 1 the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported that 81 percent of Israelis surveyed said they believed there has been incitement against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and 60 percent believe it likely that someone will try to assassinate him.

In polls in the United States, a majority of Americans supported the decision to abort a U.S. military attack on Iraq after Baghdad promised unconditional access to weapons inspectors, according to a CBS News poll. The poll results released Nov. 17 showed 54 percent of respondents agreed with President Bill Clinton’s decision, and 39 percent felt the U.S. should have gone ahead with military action.

The poll may show more about the tendency of Americans to support an incumbent president in matters involving foreign affairs than whether Americans are hawks or doves. An ABC news poll last August showed 80 percent of respondents supported the U.S. missile attacks against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan following truck bomb attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Nevertheless, 30 percent of those polled then supported the “Wag the Dog” theory that President Clinton might have ordered the attacks to divert attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Another August poll by ABC showed 68 percent of respondents said they trusted Clinton to handle the U.S. response to extremist violence, but only 24 percent of respondents rated him personally “honest and trustworthy.”

The two-thirds of respondents who are ready to trust Clinton to handle extremist violence in turn may say more about Americans’ opinions of Clinton than about violence. After the U.S. president’s August admission of an “improper relationship” with Monica Lewinsky, 63 percent of American women and 43 percent of men said they were satisfied with his explanation, according to a CNN/USA Today poll.

Interestingly, a poll taken by a columnist for The Times of India found similar sympathy for Clinton among Indian women. Some 59 percent of married Indian women said Hillary Clinton should forgive him. However, only 47 percent of the women interviewed said they would forgive their own husband if he admitted having a sexual relationship with another woman, while 45 percent said they would not forgive their husband.

B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) announced Nov. 24 that anti-Semitism is declining in the United States, except among African Americans. The ADL said its findings showed African Americans were almost four times as likely as whites to hold anti-Jewish views. ADL director Abraham Foxman attributed the disparity to widely quoted comments by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Spokesmen for both Farrakhan and for the middle-of-the-road National Association for the Advancement of Colored People disputed the ADL findings.