What Do Palestineans Want?

I picked this up from the MondoWeiss, who picked it up from Skyredoubt, who picked it up from the Hebrew blog "Truth From The Land Of Israel" who picked it up from last Wednesday's edition of the East Jerusalem Arabic daily Al Kuds - the largest circulation newspaper in Palestine.

The poll was taken in both the West Bank and Gaza on the last day of the war and on 4 subsequant days. The major conclusions:

• Palestineans are sick of politics and political parties, though Fatah is still more popular than Hamas.
  
• Palestineans are depressed, and anxious - mostly about the violence.
  
• Palestineans are poor.
  
• Palestineans want unity, but the PA is a weak reed.
  
• Palestineans want peace and are willing to recognize and sign a deal with Israel - despite the recent war.

Unfortunately the poll did not ask "how the war affected your opinion", nor does it give comparative snapshot of opinion from a previous period, so we don't know how the war affected Palestinian opinion. However you look at it though, there is a hopeful note in here: that despite everything a majority of Palestinians want to coexist peacefully with Israel.

Details of the poll include these numbers:

47% believe Fatah is the best representative of the Palestinian People , 33% belive it is the Palestinian Authority, 20% believe it is Hamas. (Fatah does better in the West Bank, Hamas better in Gaza.)

24% belong to Fatah, 14% belong to Hamas, 7% belong to other organizations, and 55% belong to none (more belong to none, and the other numbers are commensurately smaller, on the West Bank, than in Gaza.)

Should Palestinian President Abbas stay in office? (There is a legal/political debate among Palestinians about whether his term expired this past January or next January) 50-50

Whom do you trust? 23% President Abbas (of Fatah), 18% Prime Minister Haniya (of Hamas), 59% none of the two

76% do not feel secure about their bodies, their families or their property.

89% report feeling depressed because of the current situation.

90% report feel anxiety.
The main reason for anxiety: Lack of security 34%, the Israeli Occupation 27%, Internecine struggle 18%, Economic Distress 14%.

59% support the Egyptian initiative.

67% want the rockets into Israel to stop.
33% supports the rockets.

65% support signing peace agreement with Israel (in the West Bank 62%, in Gaza 70%, !!)

59% think that Hamas should change its stance refusing to recognize Israel (66% in Gaza !!, 55% in the West Bank)

42% support peace negotiations with Israel [which is weird since 65% support signing an agreement - but why should Palestinians be more logical than Israelis.]

25% support a continuation of the armed struggle.

10% support popular struggle.

23% support all of the above.

60% of Palestinians believe Israels goal in the Gaza war was to humiliate and/or subdue the Palestinians. 33% believe it was weaken Hamas.

When asked what should be the priority for the Palestinian people right now, 77% said Unity.

The data also points out that 53% of Palestinians consider themselves poor (67% in Gaza) and 25% very poor. [That makes a total of 78% who consider themselves poor or very poor.]

24% overall ( and 36% in Gaza) report being fully underemployed, and 14% report being part-time and underemployed.

1030 people. participated in the survey, 3.4% margin of error. The survey took place between 18 and 22 of January 2009 and administered by Near East Consulting.