RAMALLAH: A new Israeli poll found that 57 percent of Israelis support a dialogue with the Palestinian Hamas movement if it relinquishes terrorism and recognizes Israel.
The poll, sponsored by local daily Haaretz and Dialog Company under the guidance of Professor Camil Fuchs of the Department of Statistics at Tel Aviv University, found that 72 percent of the centrist Kadima party’s voters support the view of Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz of their party, who published a plan last week in which he called for dialogue with Hamas under certain conditions.
According to the poll, 53 percent of the rightist ruling Likud party’s supporters back the idea. Israeli commentators say that this indicates that Mofaz knew that he was marching on solid political ground when he included this radical article in his plan.
The Haaretz survey found that a great Israeli majority blames Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the impasse in the peace process with the Palestinians.
Abbas on Wednesday said the resumption of peace talks with Israel requires the complete halting of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“Without this, we will not return to the negotiations,” Abbas told thousands of Palestinians who gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah to mark the fifth anniversary of late leader Yasser Arafat.
Meanwhile, Palestinian sources told the daily Yediot Ahronot the Israeli government is now planning to focus its efforts on renewing peace talks with Syria.
The sources said that Palestinians received guarantees from two Arab states, and information from European sources that Israel has reached understandings with the American administration according to which efforts will be focused on reviving the Israeli-Syrian track in the near future.
A source said this does seem like another Israeli attempt to maneuver between the various channels, but more like a strategic decision on Israel’s part to focus on Syria.
“We understand that this time the Israelis are determined to make the most of talks in the Syrian track, after they noticed that the Palestinian leadership is not willing to discuss any options of a temporary Palestinian state,” the source said.
According to the source, at least on the outside, it seems the Palestinian Authority is not troubled by Israeli contact with Syria: “It’s not the talks that are troubling, but the fact that Netanyahu will sell them to the International community, and wave it in the face of those who demand he renew talks with us.”
A senior Fatah official was reported as saying that Israel’s turn in the direction of Syria, if it turns out to be significant, and the fact that the Americans are failing to pressure Israel into a settlement freeze, “will lead us to reconsider the entire perception of the political process and the character of the PA and its essence. At this point, as nice as it may sound, there will be no steering of the masses toward a popular uprising, but there will be progress in the construction of an international relations that do not depend on the peace process, and which will be aimed at garnering maximum support of our moves, such as the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.”
