Reply #72: "In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime"

[shira]

"But the mayor of Ras Hamis, a Palestinian neighbourhood on the eastern fringe of this divided city, says that he can't think of a worse fate for him and his constituents than being handed over to the weak and ineffective Palestinian Authority right now.

"If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Gheit said, smoking a water pipe as he whiled away the afternoon watching Lebanese music videos. "We will not accept it. There would be another intifada to defend ourselves from the PA."

http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=3044

And there's this...

62% of Israeli Arabs would choose to remain Israeli citizens rather than join a future Palestinian State. Only 14% of the respondents would choose to join a future Palestinian State and 24% did not express an opinion or refused to answer.

http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html

Only 14% of all Israeli Arabs would choose to join a future Palestinian state, meaning upwards of 85% would rather not. No surprise because of this...

Yet since 1996, Dr. Shikaki has been polling Palestinians about what governments they admire, and every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving more than 80 percent approval. The American system has been the next best, followed by the French and then, distantly trailing, the Jordanian and Egyptian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/02/international/middleeast/02LETT.html?pagewanted=1

All these reports cited are consistent.

Believe it or not.