Posted on 10/20/2001 3:37:13 AM PDT by Fighting Irish
JERUSALEM (AP) – After a year of violence and stalled peace talks, more than half the Israeli people still favor creation of a Palestinian state in a peace agreement, according to a poll published today.
A Gallup poll in the Maariv daily said 61 percent of the respondents favor creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, 58 percent oppose including any part of Jerusalem in the new nation.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week that he would agree to a Palestinian state with strict limitations, and that all of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty. However, he said, there could be no negotiations until the violence ends.
The Palestinians demand a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem and a hotly disputed site in the Old City of Jerusalem, holy to both Muslims and Jews.
For decades, a huge majority of Israelis opposed creation of a Palestinian state, but attitudes began changing after Israel and the Palestinians started signing interim peace accords in 1993.
However, the breakdown of peace talks and a year of violence have hardened Israeli attitudes toward the Palestinians. The poll showed that 60 percent of the people consider Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat an enemy, while only 30 percent see him as a partner for negotiations.
If an agreement is not possible, Israelis are divided over a solution. The poll showed that 36 percent favor a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, 22 percent recommend recapturing the territories from the Palestinians and 37 percent favor maintaining the present situation, under which Arafat's Palestinian Authority has varying degrees of control over about 40 percent of the West Bank and two thirds of Gaza.
In another question, the poll found that 75 percent of the Israeli public favor the US-led attacks in Afghanistan.
Among Jewish Israelis, the rate of support was 85 percent. However, only 6 percent of Israel's minority Arab citizens favored the attacks, while 89 percent were opposed.
The poll questioned 592 Israelis and quoted a 4.5 percent margin of error.
God needs to be re-educated. [/sarcasm]
Survey: 100% of Israelis in favor of Palestinians disappearing.
What are the alternatives? Forced emmigration of the growing non-Jewish minority -- or watching the vision of a Zionist state fade away long before its centennial anniversary.
Another alternative is to create a Palestinian State into which 'displaced Arabs' can go, and make it an attractive enough place so that the non-Jewish minority would prefer living there than in a country where the elevators open on every floor on Saturday.
By the way, peaceniks, Palestine already has a state...its called JORDAN!
Never bet what you don't have. And if you do have them, then you are obviously a commie traitor! 8^)
Well, at least they're not completely suicidal. And since the Palestinians won't agree with this provision, nor with the existence of an Israeli state, for that matter, the fighting will go on. Until one of the two wipes the other out, this will not end (because the Palestinians will settle for no less). I guess I can't say "Let's Roll" here, because I'm not Israeli, but whatever I'd say to communicate a similar sentiment, just pretend as if I'd said it.
Jordan is part of the Holy Land but it's not part of Palestine.
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