Palestinian Opinion

Here is a poll I found about Palestinian opinion after the Gaza War. I thought this would be interesting to look at in comparison with the Gallup Poll about American opinions. I've been searching all day for a poll about Israeli opinions, but I can't seem to find one that's current. If anyone knows of one, I'd be really interested to see it. According to the poll, which can be seen in full at: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-223839, a large majority of Palestinians still prefers resistance to negotiations. What do you guys think of this? At this point, it seems inevitable that the Israeli's will completely leave and the Palestinian state will return to its pre- 1948 configuration. What will be the result of continued resistance other than more fighting? This is why I really wanted to find an Israeli public opinion poll, because I would be really interested to see what percentage of Israeli's favor continued force over negotiations. Also, real quick, sorry for the late posts, I could not figure out for the life of me how to make this work until last night, so I understand if you don't have time to respond, but if you do happen to know of an Israeli opinion poll even after the blog ends Thursday night, I would be really interested to know. Anyways, Here is a summary of the report:





Poll no. 67_January 2009

Press Release
A public opinion poll conducted by Jerusalem Media & Communications Center

**
Rise in popularity of Hamas' leaders and government with decline in popularity of Fatah
The Palestinian public prefers resistance over negotiations
The majority believes that US President Obama won't bring change; however, a small
ratio still feels optimistic
Turkey, Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah are the most popular regional parties
A majority supports international supervision over the process of Gaza reconstruction

More Cartoons

This cartoon was entered in the Gaza Cartoon of the Year Contest and won an honorable mention. I was particularly drawn to this one because it seems to voice conflicting views. On the one hand, you have the Palestinian perspective: barren land, destroyed villages, IDF tanks entering the village aimed for destruction (despite the fact that it is already destroyed). The women using herself as a rocket, however, throws this image off. It admits that suicide bombing is a reality, which is not something I found in a lot of the Palestinian media sources. Ultimately, though it shows the disproportion of the forces, because how much harm can one women do compared to IDF tanks? This is misleading, though, because suicide bombings can do a lot of damage to a lot of innocent people. I would be interesting to know what your guys's take on this cartoon is, and what you think it's trying to say. Also, I uploaded some other cartoons as well that I thought were particularly striking.

Facebook's Take On The Conflict

These are two links to facebook groups entitled:

"Israel is not a country - Delist it from facebook as one"

and

"Palestine is not a country - Delist it from facebook as one"

I thought these were interesting because each group tries to legitimate their claim to space by negating the others claim. Both groups continually reference time as the reason the land is theirs. In the "Palestine is not a country" group the members claim that Israel has claim to the land because it owned the land so long ago, while in the "Israel is not a country" group the members claim that Palestine has claim to the land because it owned the land so recently. It raises some interesting questions about whether recent or ancient ownership is more legitimate, or if they're even comparable.

Another interesting part about these groups is that you get to see the views of everyday people, not just politicians and reporters. There are also hundreds of groups that advocate peace between the two groups.





http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2366623903
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=125865a3f54a141a4f6e31172d0156a7&gid=55153379953