By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
In most parts of the world, it’s not easy to find a major issue on which 80 percent of the population agrees. An election victory in the United States is considered a “landslide” if the winner receives more than 60 percent of the vote, such as Richard Nixon winning 65 percent of the vote against George McGovern in the 1972 presidential race.
But among Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza, it turns out there is one issue on which there is more support than any other: randomly murdering Israeli Jews.
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research last week asked a sample of 1,270 Palestinian Arab adults in the territories what they thought of the recent wave of attacks in which Palestinians stabbed Israelis or ran them over with their cars. Eighty percent responded that they support such attacks.
Note that the respondents weren’t talking about theoretical future attacks. They were commenting on recent attacks which they know all about. Here is what they are endorsing:
-Ramming a car into a crowd at a train station in Jerusalem. The fatalities included a 3-month old infant.
-Stabbing an unarmed young woman standing at a bus stop in Gush Etzion.
-Axing and machine-gunning four rabbis at prayer in a Jerusalem synagogue.
Could the 80 percent endorsement be a fluke? A one-time aberration? A momentary lapse in good judgment, spurred by recent tensions?
Hardly. There is a remarkable consistency in Palestinian public opinion. The same polling institution surveyed 1,200 Palestinians in the territories in late September and found that 80 percent support resuming the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel.
Why is it that 80 percent of Palestinians embrace the brutal murder and terrorization of Israeli civilians?
Three reasons stand out.
First, there is the general brutality of Palestinian Arab society. Violence by relatives against women suspected of immorality, violence by Muslim extremists against Christian Arabs, violence by the Palestinian Authority regime against dissidents-it’s all commonplace in the territories. That makes it easier for the average citizen to see violence as acceptable.
Second, there is a sense that violence works. Kidnapping Israelis led to the release of thousands of Palestinian terrorists from prison. Decades of bombings and hijackings led to widespread international support for Palestinian statehood. The recent attacks in Jerusalem have led to calls to redivide the city (including, most recently, by U.S. Mideast envoy Martin Indyk).
Third, and perhaps most important, is the influence of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement by the Palestinian leadership. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry correctly pointed out that the Jerusalem synagogue slaughter was “a pure result of incitement.” The constant incitement by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, including declarations praising terrorists as heroes and accusing Israel of desecrating Muslim religious sites, have created an atmosphere in which support for murdering Jews has become the norm.
The normally alleged justification for Palestinian violence-a reaction to “the occupation”-does not stand up. Since 1995, more than 95 percent of Judea and Samaria-based Palestinians have lived under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, which controls all aspects of Palestinian life except for visas and external security. And since 2005, Palestinians in Gaza have controlled even those aspects.
The Oslo Accords were supposed to have put an end to all that. Palestinian leaders were supposed to educate the public to embrace peace. They promised to change the hearts and minds of average Palestinians, to raise a generation ready to live in peace with Israel. Instead, they decided to do exactly the opposite. And as the new poll demonstrates, they succeeded.
Moshe Phillips is president and Benyamin Korn is chairman of the Religious Zionists of America, Philadelphia. This article first appeared at JNS.ORG.
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
Do you have to show the blood, Matzav?
I would be more impressed if your publication feared Hashem enough to realize that blood displayed is hate wanted.
Keep this site more religious please. Some of us have to daven.
He forgets or refuses to list the most important and central reason: Islam. Islam, like Nazism, teaches that Jews are not humans but monsters that are destroying the world and can only be stopped by annihilating them. The Koran calls us the sons of the devil, the descendants of pigs and apes. They have been so indoctrinated since they could talk and every day are told it is the greatest of all deeds to kill a Jew. So why would any of them think else-wise?
Nice peaceful people worthy of the world’s philanthropic handouts! England, Denmark, Ireland etc. all talking about the great Palestinian state they support.
Heaven forbid one jew should do a similar attack onto one of these wonderful people, a la the death of a Palestinian killer-leader a week ago and the world goes berserk.
Aisav hates us! End of story!!!
Then can we puythe claim of collective punishment to bed once and for all and stop being told that is not fair
A simple reading of this article tells us that The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research issued a statement that they conducted a survey the result of which is that 80% of Palestinians favor the recent wave of attacks against the most innocent of Israelis. However there is nothing provided here in the way of provenance to suggest that the issued statement is in any way based on factual evidence.
Who is/are the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, and why is this survey credible? Who funded the purported survey? Is there any professional authority that peer reviewed their findings? Is it possible that the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research might simply be a propaganda arm of Hamas/PA/Hezbollah/ISIS, what have you, whose purpose is to show the overwhelming grass roots support for their respective movements?
I’ve just recently read about a survey that concluded that 99% of Americans believe that the U.S. ought not to have participated in the First World War. The survey was conducted at the Kaiser Wilhelm Fan Club. Context is king, indeed.
Hyperbole is dangerous whether engaged in by Der Sturmer, the New York Times, Al Jazeera, or even Matzav.com, because it resonates with the basest of human frailties, namely, fear. Gross misrepresentations of facts cause knee jerk reactions by the masses a la Ferguson, MO.
In these perilous times we cannot afford to be moved by anything but the whole unadorned truth.
intersting
This underscores the difference between a country that happened to have gone into war, while its citizens are minding their own business, and a country where every inhabitant is at war. This should shed some light into the wars mentioned in the Torah and why they looked the way they did.