Background

The Egyptian Government made an initiative to the Palestinian Authority aiming at putting things in order after the proposed Israeli pullout from the settlements in the Gaza Strip. While the Palestinian Authority welcomed the Egyptian initiative, some Palestinian political factions declared their reservations on some of its articles.
On the international arena, the International Court of Justice made its final verdict concerning the Separation Wall in the West Bank. The verdict calls on Israel to remove the Wall since it is not legal and to compensate the Palestinian families for the damage that the Wall caused to them. In this context, some officials at the US Administration warned Palestinians against resorting to the United Nations for dealing with the ICJ verdict.
On the Palestinian internal arena, the issue of local councils elections and the mechanisms of conducting them continues to dominate a good part of the on-going debates. The issue of giving women a quota in the local councils boards is another vital issue. The debate on elections exceeds the local councils elections to call for a presidential and legislative ones as soon as possible.
On the other side of the Palestinian arena Israel still continues its excursions inside Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps with the same killing and destruction whether in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip.
* The Opinions represented in the results reflect those of the study; they do not represent by any means the opinion of An-Najah National University.

The Results

Following are the results of the seventh public opinion poll conducted by the Center for Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah National University during the period from 15-17 July, 2004. The University took full sponsorship of the whole poll.
The seventh poll undertakes several subjects which focused on the Egyptian initiative, the separation wall, the local Palestinian situation, the performance of Palestinian institutions, the legislative and local councils elections, in addition to the political affiliation of Palestinian people and other issues.
The sample included 1358 persons whose age group is 18 years and above and who have the right to vote. The sample forms one per thousand from among the total number of Palestinian people of this age group. The enclosed questionnaire was distributed on 859 persons from the West Bank and 499 persons from the Gaza Strip.
The sample was chosen randomly and the margin of error of the sample is about ±3%. Still 2.5% of the members of the sample refused to answer the questionnaire.

The Major Results:

• While 68.9% from among the respondents say that they know the details of the Egyptian initiative, 59.0% of them support it.
• Concerning the articles of the Egyptian initiative, 50.9% reject the article related to sending Egyptian security experts, 79.9% support the article related to uniting all security apparatuses under the leadership of the Palestinian Council of Ministers, and 80.2% support appointing an effective minister for the interior affairs with wide responsibilities.
• While 17.8% from among respondents see that the Egyptian initiative aims at helping the Palestinian people, 41.7% see that the initiative aims at supporting Sharon’s Unilateral Disengagement Plan.
• While 46.0% from among respondents support the participation of Egypt and Jordan in the rehabilitation of Palestinian security apparatuses if Israel pulls out from the Gaza Strip, 51.4% reject that.
• 44.5% from among respondents give priority, after Israel pulls out, to creating job opportunities and fighting unemployment and poverty, while 6.0% believe that priority should be given to rehabilitating ministries and the civil institutions.
• 59.0% from among respondents believe that Israel will not be committed to the Quartet’s conviction that an Israeli pull out from the Strip is part of the Road Map.
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