TEL AVIV – Palestinians are becoming more extreme and an increasing number of them support terror against Israel, a new poll published on Sunday found.
The survey, conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center in collaboration with the German foundation Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, found that Palestinian support for the two-state solution had dropped from 49% one year ago to 35%.
23% of respondents expressed support for one state for both peoples – effectively abolishing the Jewish state – up 5 percentage points from last year.
An overwhelming majority of 96% of those polled oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital.
Less Palestinians today support the idea of a negotiated solution with Israel, down from 37% in February 2017 to 25% in 2018.
Palestinians who supported “armed resistance” against Israel – usually in the form of terror attacks – was 25%, up 5 percentage points from last year.
Nonviolent resistance saw a 6% increase to 30%.
Support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is decreasing, dropping from 44% to 39%. Both his Fatah faction and its rival, terror group Hamas, have lost support. Fatah dropped two percentage points to 23% while Hamas support decreased from 14% to nine percent.
Palestinians who do not trust any politician increased to 52% in this poll, up 12 percentage points from a similar poll conducted in August 2017.
More than 55% of respondents said that the Palestinian leadership will fail to make true on its threat to halt recognition of Israel and cease security coordination between the PA and the IDF in the West Bank. A further 54% predicted that the PA would renege on its decision to oust the U.S. as a broker in negotiations with Israel.
The poll was conducted among 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between January 27 and February 2 with a margin of error of three percent.