Thursday, December 22, 2005
Peace Between Israel and Palestine: Palestinian Propensity for Peace
In a recent response to one of my posts, I was asked about published press indicating the desire for peace on the Palestinian side. A friend of mine, Todd, sent me the link above, and while it’s formatted poorly, it’s the compilation of a number of surveys of the Palestinian people, and it’s extremely informative. It clearly indicates that the majority of the Palestinians are in favor of peace, though they don’t realistically see it happening any time soon.
Perhaps most indicative is “Are you with or against the resumption of the negotiations with the Israeli side for reaching a final settlement of the conflict”, where 75% of surveyed Palestinians in Gaza and 59.5% of all surveyed Palestinians are in favor of negotiations. 74.3% of the Palestinians surveyed support truce agreements that prevent attacks on Israeli targets, and 81.9% of the surveyed Palestinians support and “end to internal insecurity and arms chaos”.
64.7% of the surveyed Palestinians said both the Israelis and the Palestinians have a right to live in peace and security. 76.5% strongly support or somewhat support the continuation of calm with the Israelis. And even as far back as March, 57.4% of the surveyed people supported the ongoing peace process. These are the indicants of a people who favor peace over war, at least in general.
On the flip side, the same people indicated their lack of satisfaction with the present state of affairs. 55.2% of all people feel secure after Israel’s departure from Gaza. 76.7% of all people believe Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza will deepen Israel’s control over the West bank. 46.8% of the surveyed people think that withdrawal from Gaza wont lead to ending the problem of illegal weapons and chaos, and 64.1% believe it wont lead to the easing of the closure on the west bank.
Take a look, and I believe you’ll agree that these numbers clearly show the Palestinian propensity towards peace although it also indicates their skepticism as a result of the direction recent events have turned out.
Posted by Scottage at 5:23 PM /
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