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Leading Pollsters Review the Current Israeli-Palestinian Climate
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Nader Said and Tamar Hermann - Nader Said is president of the Palestinian firm Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD): 62% of Palestinians approved of the recent attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank: 51% among West Bank residents and 78% among Gazans. Only 42% favored the Gaza "marches of return": 50% in West Bank, 29% in Gaza. 56% would like to see a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, a view much more prevalent among Gazans than West Bankers. 66% believe Palestinian society is going in the wrong direction, while 55% say their families are doing worse financially than last year. Tamar Hermann is academic director of the Israel Democracy Institute's Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research: Overall, Israeli poll respondents are rather pleased with their country's situation. From 2003 to 2018, the percentage who described this situation as "good or very good" rose from 10% to 53%, while the percentage who answered "bad or very bad" plummeted from over 60% to 16%. Only 6% of Jewish respondents state that reaching a peace agreement should be the government's main focus. Support for the two-state solution among the Jewish public is only 46.8%, the lowest it has been since 1998.63% of Jews believe that the majority of Palestinians have not yet come to terms with Israel's existence and would destroy the country if they could. From a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute on Feb. 7.