There is a widespread belief that Palestinian terrorism, hatred and extremism come only from the margins of Palestinian society and that most Palestinians are actually reconciled to living in peace in a state of their own alongside Israel.
President Bush said in June 2002 that “the hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage” and Bush administration officials have spoken repeatedly about wishing to help Palestinians realize their dreams of statehood alongside Israel. The result is more pressure on Israel to make concessions to Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the belief that this will produce the elusive peace agreement.
Unfortunately, the evidence shows that Palestinians do not accept Israel’s legitimacy or permanence.
Successive Palestinian polls since the outbreak of the Palestinian terrorist war in September 2000 have shown that Palestinians reject the legitimacy and permanence of Israel. A clear indicator of this fact has been the consistently high levels of Palestinian support for terrorism and for implementing the so-called right of return, whereby Palestinian refugees of the first Arab-Israeli war and their descendants would inundate Israel and overwhelm the country from within.
A Bir Zeit University Poll in September 2000 found 80 percent support for terrorist attacks and 88 percent support for implementing the “right of return.” A Jerusalem Media and Communication Center poll in April 2001 also came up with 80 percent support for terrorist attacks.
A Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) poll in May 2002 found an even higher percentage of Palestinians – 89 percent – supporting attacks on Israeli civilians. A poll by the same organization in November 2002 came up with the disturbing finding that, even after the signing of a peace agreement, only 8 percent of Palestinians would support the adoption of a school curriculum that recognizes the state of Israel and does not call for the transfer of all Israeli territory to the Palestinians. This would make nonsense of any peace treaty and guarantee that, whatever its terms, it would not endure.
Results like these can also be seen in more recent polls following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria. The results of a December 2005 PCPSR poll make disturbing reading, indicating a general Palestinian unwillingness to live in peace with Israel or do what is necessary, such as fulfilling signed Palestinian obligations to disarm the terrorist movements to achieve progress toward peace.
For example, a majority of Palestinians – 51 percent to 47 percent – opposed the collection of weaponry from armed groups in Judea, Samaria and Gaza – which not only would be a vital step in fighting terrorism, but is a specified Palestinianobligation under signed agreements and the 2003 road map peace plan. Similarly, a majority of Palestinians – 82 percent to 17 percent – support the absorption of armed members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah into the Palestinian security services rather than their arrest and disarming as required under the road map.
In other words, in the view of a majority of Palestinians, the terrorists from organizations committed in their respective charters to the practice of terrorism and Israel’s destruction should become part of the PA armed forces.
Also troubling is the consistently high support for the right of return and thus for the implementation of a policy that would amount to the destruction of Israel. The December PCPSR poll shows that only a minority of Palestinians – 40 percent as opposed to 46 percent the previous year – would support a solution that includes, in addition to a limited implementation of a right of return, alternative options for Palestinian refugees. In other words, most Palestinians continue to oppose anything less than the full repatriation of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel, even if an agreement was reached that would allow some of them to do so.