Most Palestinians back Mideast roadmap
Web posted at: 2/19/2006 3:42:12
Source ::: The Peninsula

DOHA: A majority of the Palestinians who went to vote in the recent parliamentary elections, including one-third of the Hamas voters supported the Middle East "road map", according to an exit poll.

This was disclosed by Khalil Shikaki, director, Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research while addressing a session devoted to public opinion polls at the US-Islamic World Forum yesterday.

"The vote for Hamas does not mean a vote against the peace process," said Shikaki, citing the findings of the exit poll.

Majority of the voters, including a major chunk of the Hamas supporters were in favour of a compromise with Israel and was ready to accept its existence and identity, he said.

"The Palestinians today are the most moderate in their years long history of conflict. They are fed up with bloodshed and violence. The willingness to accept each other is now more and more visible among the Palestinians as well as the Isrealis" he noted.

Hamas now enjoys the biggest support base in its history among the Palestinians with 44 per cent of the votes cast in its favour.

This is because people felt that Fatah was not capable of addressing the two major issues — corruption and lawlessness. They also felt that Hamas was able to address the issue of nation building better than Fatah.

The Palestinians resorted to violence whenever the Israeli aggression led to more deaths and bloodshed.

Majority of the Palestinians, however, believe that their violent struggle, rather than efforts on the diplomatic levels helped achieve their national goals.

"Negotiation" which was the key asset of Fatah has lost credibility among them. David Brooks, columnist of the New York Times was also among the speakers at the session.