Posted on 06/26/2006 7:47:52 AM PDT by Alouette
Most Israelis oppose Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank, a public opinion poll released Monday showed.
50 percent of Israelis oppose the premier's realignment plan, whereby Israel would pull out of the vast majority of the West Bank while maintaining the large settlement blocs, while 46% of Israelis support the proposal, the Hebrew University poll found.
While 54 percent of the Israelis polled said that the outcome of the last election grants Olmert a mandate to carry out his withdrawal plan, 58% believe a referendum should be carried out over the contentious proposal.
The poll's results indicate that the planned West Bank withdrawal is much more controversial than last year's Gaza pullout, which was supported by about two-thirds of the public, according to a series of public opinion polls carried out ahead of the Gaza withdrawal.
The poll also found that Palestinians are almost evenly divided when asked how they would vote on a much-touted Palestinian "prisoner's document," with only a razor-thin majority in favor of the plan, which implicitly recognizes the State of Israel but also advocates the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian State along the 1967 lines.
Although 74 percent of Palestinians say they support the document in general, only 47% would vote in favor of it in a referendum, while 44% would vote against it, the poll found. Nine percent of the respondents remain undecided.
A Palestinian referendum on the proposal, which calls for the continuation of Palestinian terror attacks to be restricted to the territories, is tentatively slated to be held in one month's time.
Israel views the plan, which is supported by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as a non-starter.
The poll was carried out earlier this month with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
The Israeli poll has a margin of error of 4 percent, while the Palestinian poll lists a margin of error of 3 percent.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
If the results of giving up the Gaza Strip is any indication why should Israeli's support retreating from the West Bank. More land for radical Hamas et al to launch strikes from and land will not placate them. HELLO?
This is encouraging. However, I do not put too much faith in "polls" in general. I agree with the author that the majority of the Israeli populace does not support the withdrawl. I believe this is definitely in large part, lately, to the palesimians destroying the Gaza greenhouses and the Kassam attacks. The Ham-@ss morons are doing Israel's PR for oppostition to the withdrawl.
Just remember, from Israel's election night, I have said Olmert is not going to accomplish his election platform.
It may be worse.
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