The vast majority of Palestinian Authority residents support the terror attack on Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva that killed eight students earlier on March 6, according to a new poll cited in the New York Times on Wednesday.
A student wounded in the shooting attack in Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva is evacuated to Sha'arei Tzedek Hospital. [file]
Photo: AP
According to the survey, which was conducted among 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank, 84 percent of those polled stood behind the shooting attack. In addition, 64% supported firing Kassam rockets at Negev towns.
"The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada," the paper quoted the pollster, Khalil Shikaki, as saying.
He added that he had never seen such a high level of support for an act of violence in all his 15 years of polling in Ramallah.
The survey also indicated that the majority of Palestinians would choose Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh (47%) over Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (46%) if elections were called now, and that three-quarters of Palestinians favored terminating negotiations between the Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The poll had a margin error of plus or minus three percentage points.
