Israel Praises Poll That 73% of Palestinian Arabs Approve Hamas Charter

Polls have been in the news recently--the poll that support for Obama by Jewish Democrats is stable, another poll that it has declined to 43%, and a poll that 60% of Palestinian Arabs reject a 2-state solution and 73% agree with the Hamas Charter.

True, of the three, that last one is most likely to fly under most people's radar, but it does indicate that Obama's push for a 2 state solution as the underpinning of his peace plan is misguided.

The agreement with the Hamas Charter centers around the quote in the Hamas Charter about killing Jews:

The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).

But according to Evelyn Gordon, that was not the scary part:

But perhaps even scarier than the poll itself was the delusional response of Israeli leaders when briefed on it by pollster Stanley Greenberg and Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of The Israel Project, which commissioned it. According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli leaders said “they were encouraged by Palestinian support for talks.” Indeed, 65 percent of respondents preferred talks to violence as a tactic for achieving their goals. But what good is that if there’s nothing to talk about – which there isn’t as long as Palestinians deny the Jewish state’s right to exist? [emphasis added]

Well, at least now we know how Obama is going to interpret the poll.

On the other hand, Gordon thinks that Netanyahu is on the right track:

Netanyahu was also right when he told Bulgaria’s foreign minister a few days later peace would come faster if Europe stopped treating Palestinians “like a spoiled child” and instead began to “tell the Palestinians the truth” about the concessions they will need to make for any agreement – like recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and dropping their demand to resettle Palestinian refugees in Israel – instead of only spelling out the concessions it wants Israel to make. For again, as long as the international community refuses to say otherwise, Palestinian will keep thinking they can secure Israel’s retreat from the territories without having to give up their quest for its destruction.

Of course Netanyahu does not always practice what he preaches--he never passes up an opportunity to proclaim that the Arabs want peace, and if he says that, then why should the West assume otherwise?

Two steps forward, one step back.

It gets frustrating.


Technorati Tag: Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Operation Cast Lead.