Even today, under conditions of war in which previous levels of support for a two-state solution have been eroded by bloodshed and despair, the latest public opinion surveys show that

• 44% of Palestinians say they still support a 2-state solution, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza living in peace next to Israel.
• Only 28.9% support a bi-national state–a single state in all of historic Palestine, encompassing what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. [1]

According to another respected Palestinian opinion research institute, Dr. Khalil Shikaki’s Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), another recent poll shows that 73% of Palestinians "support reconciliation between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples after reaching a peace agreement and the establishment of a Palestinian state."[2] Shikaki notes that "this commitment to reconciliation, based on a two-state solution, does not mean that all three quarters believe it will actually happen. Indeed, 43% of all Palestinians believe that reconciliation will never happen." And "while support, as in all previous polls, is very high for open borders between the two states (84%) and for joint economic institutions and ventures (68%)…only a minority of 22% supports the formation of joint political institutions (aiming at the establishment of a confederation between the two states)."

People often fail to note longitudinal trends in such poll results, which show for example that Palestinian support for violence against Israel plummeted to 20% when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, and hopes were high for a negotiated solution, with backing for political talks with Israel peaking at 80%. (For a detailed analysis of the past decade of Palestinian public opinion trends, which explains the relationship between changes in Palestinian attitudes to the vicissitudes of political conditions, see Khalil Shikaki, "Palestinians Divided," Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2002.) Pollsters do not view many of the other unfavorable findings in current opinion surveys as reflecting settled attitudes, given the more positive results found in previous polls over not only the previous year, but the past decade. Support for a peace agreement and two-state solution is much less now than before the intifada, and support for violence is of course much greater. When peace talks are resumed, and a basis for hope is restored, notes Major-General (res.) Shlomo Gazit, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence, Palestinian attitudes will moderate once again, as they have in the past. (Associated Press, 6/12/02)

In his Foreign Affairs essay, Shikaki notes that "Between 1993 and 2001, with the sole exception of 1994, Palestinian support for the Oslo agreement never dropped below 60 percent. But Palestinian hopes began to fade away as a result of both Binyamin Netanyahu's election as Israel's prime minister in mid-1996 and the continued building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian expectations that the peace process would soon lead to statehood and a permanent settlement dropped from 44 percent during Shimon Peres' prime ministership in 1995-96 to 30 percent in the first year under Netanyahu. Four years later, with Ehud Barak having replaced Netanyahu and Jewish settlements continuing to expand, expectation of a permanent settlement sank to 24 percent. Once Ariel Sharon won election as Israel's head of government in early 2001, a mere 11 percent of Palestinians clung to that hope. The loss of confidence in the ability of the peace process to deliver a permanent agreement on acceptable terms had a dramatic impact on the level of Palestinian support for violence against Israelis, including suicide bombings against civilians. In July 2000, after U.S. President Bill Clinton's failed attempt to broker a final peace settlement at Camp David but before the eruption of the second intifada, already 52 percent of Palestinians approved of the use of violence; a year later, that figure reached the unprecedented level of 86 percent."

[1] Jerusalem Media & Communication Center Poll Number 46, "On Palestinian Attitudes Towards the Palestinian Situation and the Second anniversary of the Intifada," September 21 - 25, 2002), at http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2002/no46.htm.

[2] Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) Public Opinion Poll # 5 (18-21 August 2002), at http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2002/p5a.html