Poll: Majority of Palestinians expect third intifada if peace talks fail
Survey finds 60% of Palestinians satisfied with Abbas.
By KHALED ABU TOAMEHNew Palestinian group announces 3rd intifada 370(photo credit: YouTube screenshot)
Fifty-eight percent of Palestinians expect a third intifada if the peace talks with Israel fail, a poll published on Wednesday showed.The Palestinian Center for Public Opinion conducted the survey, which covered a random sample of 1,110 Palestinians representing a demographic sample of adults in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. It has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.Fifty percent of Palestinians support the resumption of the peace negotiations with Israel, while 39% oppose it, the survey showed.Asked how an agreement with Israel should be ratified, 46% said that it should be approved through a referendum, while 25% said that a decision by the Palestinian Authority would be sufficient.When asked whether they anticipate the outbreak of a third intifada in case the peace process ended in failure, 58% replied in the affirmative, while 26% said they did not expect violence.Asked what rating they would give the performance of PA President Mahmoud Abbas in managing the talks with Israel, on a scale from 1 to 10, the average rating Palestinians gave was 6.More than 60% of respondents said they were satisfied with the way Abbas was dealing with his post.Also on Wednesday, Nimer Hammad, political adviser to Abbas, said that if the current peace talks fail, the result would be a one-state solution such as the one that existed in South Africa.Hammad told the Quds Net News Agency that the talks with Israel still haven’t reached a dead-end. However, he said, they were “facing difficulties here and there.”Commenting on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address to the United Nations General Assembly, Hammad said: “The speech is far from reflecting sincerity and a serious desire in telling the truth.”
