By KHALED ABU TOAMEHUpdated: MARCH 14, 2016 02:50Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses UN General Assembly(photo credit: REUTERS)
Nearly 60 percent of Palestinians support the continuation of the current wave of attacks on Israelis, according to a public opinion poll published on Sunday.Forty-one percent of respondents oppose it.The proportion of those who favor the continuation of the attacks was highest in the Gaza Strip (75%), while in the West Bank only about half (51%) do so.The poll, conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, covered some 1,200 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It was conducted in the first week of March and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.The results showed that the twostate solution remains the most acceptable resolution to the conflict with Israel among Palestinians, with a majority of nearly 70% opposing any change in the official policy of the Palestinian Authority in this regard.Only 24% of respondents supported a change in policy demanding equal rights for Arabs and Jews in one state.Palestinians are divided over the issue of security coordination with Israel. More than 52% of respondents said they favored such coordination as opposed to 38% who said they were against it.The JMCC poll indicated a drop in the level of satisfaction with PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s performance.Nearly 53% of respondents expressed satisfaction last August with his performance. Now, however, that figure has slipped to 45%.There has been a rise in the popularity of jailed Fatah-Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti – from 10% last August to 15% now. Still, Abbas maintained his first-place position in terms of the public’s trust (14%) followed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (10%) and Barghouti (9.9%).
There has also been a retreat in the level of trust in Hamas, down from 22% in March 2015 to 16.5% today.In contrast, trust in Fatah remains stable: 35% now compared