Blue Collar Muse

Hat tip to Debbie over at Right Truth for turning me on to this survey. The participants in the survey are as follows,

“The sample included 1361 persons whose age group is 18 and above and who have the right to vote. The enclosed questionnaire was distributed on 861 persons from the West Bank and 500 persons from the Gaza Strip.”

I’ve edited the reported result s to show only the results that I personally found interesting. You can find the rest of the results in the original piece reported in the Palestine News Agency - WAFA, here. The survey was conducted May 17-19, 2007.

What I find most interesting about this is that there have been elections and the Palestinian leadership claims to speak and act for the people. Given the results of the poll below, one can only wonder which of the people the Palestinian leadership is speaking for? How long before the Palestinian leadership changes their actions and plans based on what their people are saying? Also, given the American Left’s attention to polls and their claims Bush is out of touch with America because of low polling, how long do you think it will be before the American Left calls for the repudiation of of the current Palestinian leadership and new elections? Finally, I’d love to see an accompanying poll asking Arabs living in Israel the same questions about the Israeli government. I’m not holding my breath.

An independent fresh public poll revealed on Monday that 82.7% of respondents are pessimistic towards the general Palestinian conditions at this stage.

In a statement, COPSS said that the poll showed that 92% of respondents do not feel safe neither for themselves nor for their families and properties under the present circumstances. 79.2% of respondents said that their economic situation under the current circumstances is deteriorating. 82.2% of respondents said that the local security conditions deteriorated.

90.9% of respondents assessed the current Palestinian conditions in the Palestinian territories as “bad”, 8.2% assessed them as “good”.

6.9% of respondents believed that the Mecca Accord signed between Fateh and Hamas will hold for a long period of time.

19.1% of respondents believed that the Unity Government will continue to perform its duties during the coming period, 68.6% believed it will collapse.

35.3% of respondents believed that Hamas is really concerned with the success of the Palestinian Unity Government.

37% of respondents believed that Fateh is really concerned with the success of the Palestinian Unity Government.

18.6% of respondents believed that the Unity Government was able to implement the security plan that it declared to put an end to security mayhem, 73.5% believed it was not.

49.2% of respondents said that they are in favor of continuing the strike of the employees of the public sector since the present government is unable to secure their salaries.

26.6 % of respondents believed that the current government is capable of securing the salaries of the employees within the near future.

28.7% of respondents believed that the Unity Government is capable of solving the problem of salaries.

46% of respondents supported dissolving the Palestinian Authority while 47.1% rejected that.

37.9% of respondents believed that there is a possibility for reaching an agreement between the Palestinian factions to form a new government if the current government fails, 51.4% saw the contrary.

34.6% of respondents believed that the Unity Government will survive until the end of this year under the current circumstances, 51.2% believed the contrary.

59% of respondents believed that the recent confrontations practically aborted the Mecca Accord.

19% of respondents believed that the National Unity Government is currently capable of controlling the conditions in the Gaza Strip, 75.4% believed the contrary.

59.3% of respondents believed that the resignation of the Minister of Interior Affairs will create a new crisis between Fateh and Hamas over the position of a new minister.

24.8% of respondents believed that the National Unity Government came as a result of the desire of both Fateh and Hamas to share authority, 27% believed that it came as a result of the pressure exerted by the Palestinian Public, 18.7% believed that it came as a result of pressure exerted by Arab countries.

45.3% of respondents supported the US Middle East Plan which proposes easing up the movements of Palestinian people in return for a cease in firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, 48.3% rejected the US plan.

43% of respondents rejected firing rockets from the Gaza Strip against Israel.

40.4% of respondents said that firing rockets from the Gaza Strip against Israel hurts the Palestinian cause, 32.5% said it serves it.

62.3% of respondents supported a call on the Palestinian factions by the Palestinian Authority to return to a truce with Israel, 31.8% rejected that.

These numbers are nothing short of stunning if they turn out to be accurate. The people are soundly rejecting the parties that either they are said to have elected, that have claimed the support of the people or that are generally seen as speaking for the people. I tend to think the numbers are real although there’s no way to know how the questions were asked. The reason I give them credence is that they show some very bad news for the Unity Government and the Palestinian cause in general. Bad news is generally not well received in those parts and is often simply ignored while totally fabricated good news is substituted. You may remember the Iraqi spokesman known as ‘Bagdhad Bob’ denying the presence of US forces in Bagdhad while video behind him showed US forces in Bagdhad. Of course, it may also be that factional fighting between Fatah and Hamas has been so widely reported in even Middle Eastern media that they figured, “There’s no denying this one!”

Thinking that all the Imam’s horses and all the Imam’s men don’t stand a chance of fixing this omelette in the making …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Geopolitics, Muslim. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.