Palestinians Favor Violence Over Talks
In what’s quite a surprising development, the New York Times published the findings of a poll that show that the majority of Palestinians “favor violence over peace talks.” And not just “a majority,” but an “overwhelming majority” at that. 86% of Palestinians support the attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem last week that killed eight innocent young Jewish men.
Aside from that little tidbit, 75% of Palestinians say that negotiations with Israel are “without benefit and should be terminated.” 90% of those people, that’s 64% of the sum total, say that they support firing rockets at Israeli villages and cities.
Interestingly enough, 66 percent of Palestinians say they favor “normalized relations with Israel if it returned all land won in 1967 and a Palestinian state was established.”
So wait: no negotiations, more terrorist attacks, and then Israel should decide to withdraw all by itself (no negotiations allowed) and a Palestinian state should be established without Israel having any say about it? That makes sense, doesn’t it?
The pollster, “Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel.”
He commented: “There is real reason to be concerned.” “The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada,” he said. “I am very worried about what is coming.”
The New Republic accurately concludes: “Palestinians still want to kill Jews.” And adds: “No wonder Chancellor Merkel and President Szarkozy have put their countries fully behind Israel in its existential struggle for security.”
Quite right.
Most Palestinains never learnt to think logically. They hear a lot of propaganda crap in their lives though.
Happy Mevlid/Maoulid to all Muslims.
Ten years ago I was short-listed for the UNRWWA job in Gaza, a UN senior position which would lead to a cushy NYC post afterward if I behaved. I was pro-Palestinian, though I knew they had a suicidal component in their political genes. Over the last decade, since Arafat threw Barak & Clinton’s proposals into the trash and never came up with a counter-offer…….
As several Iraqis told George Packer on his most recent visit, "there is a part of us that doesn’t want to succeed." "A lot of what is happening in Iraq is simply the Iraqis’ fault."
Sadly, there are fewer and fewer Palestinians honest enough to make that self-assessment.