Our Secretary of State told Cal Thomas a while back, “Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they’re perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace.” Well, er, not quite.
The Jerusalem Post reports:
The number of Palestinians who support attacks against Israelis continues to rise and more than half of them favor suicide bombings, according to a poll published this weekend.
The survey also showed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is still more popular than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The percentage of Palestinians who support “resistance operations” against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for this option was highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing.
Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now.
Again, more Gazans support these operations (65.1%), compared with 42.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank.
The Palestinian public is divided on the rocket attacks on Israel: 39.3% said the firing of these rockets was “useful” to Palestinian national interests, while 35.7% said they were harmful. …