Palestinian poll shows Saddam is more popular than Arafat
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
The majority of Palestinians continues to support suicide attacks against Israel, according to a public opinion poll published Thursday by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion. The poll, which covered a random sample of 1,000 adults in the West Bank and Jerusalem, also showed that support for Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat continues to plunge.
According to the poll, which was conducted in the first week of January, 56.2% of Palestinians support the continuation of suicide attacks, while 46.9% would like the intifada to continue. However, 40.9% expressed their belief that the intifada has harmed Palestinian interests.
The center said the poll's margin of error was 3.1 percent points.
Support for Arafat has plummeted to 44%, the poll showed. Previous polls have shown support for Arafat to be above 60%.
By comparison, Thursday's poll showed that 65.6% support Saddam Hussein in his standoff with the US.
The poll also shows that 45.7% of Palestinians support, to varying degrees, the new version of the American road map plan for peace in the Middle East, while 37.3% oppose it.
Some 43.2% said they were opposed to Arafat's decision to postpone Palestinian general elections which were scheduled for January 20. Arafat decided to postpone the elections indefinitely, citing the IDF reoccupation of West Bank cities as the main reason.
On the issue of negotiations between various Palestinian factions to reassess the strategy of the intifada, 50.4% said they supported efforts to persuade Palestinian parties to stop terrorist attacks against Israeli on condition that Israel eases military restrictions, lifts the siege on Arafat, and withdraw to the pre-September 28, 2000 positions.
On the possibility of resuming security coordination between the PA and Israel, more than 45% of said they oppose such a move.
In response to a question whether an Israeli government headed by Labor Party chairman Amram Mitzna would be better or worse than the government of Ariel Sharon for the peace process, 48.9% of Palestinians said they saw no difference between the two. Only 16.8% said the situation could improve under Mitzna.
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