Palestinian Public Opinion: Attitudes towards Peace Negotiations and National Reconciliation

This report presents selected results of the 2014 Arab Opinion Index from Palestine (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). The Arab Opinion Index is the largest opinion poll of its kind in the Arab region—in 2014, more than 20,000 respondents from 15 countries were included. It seeks to elucidate public opinion on a number of social, political, and economic issues, including attitudes towards democracy; political and civic participation; and respondents’ views of state institutions in their own country. In addition to the main battery of questions, respondents in Palestine were also asked their opinion on a range of topical issues, such as questions on the peace process and on Palestinian national reconciliation, and elections to the Palestinian presidency and the Legislative Council. The context for these selected questions is US Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to achieve a framework agreement on the resumption of talks between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel, which coincided with the conduct of the poll. Details of the findings are presented below.