Poll: Hold talks with PA even if Hamas in Parliament

[Colorado Blue]

A Peace Index poll released Tuesday shows that the majority of Israelis think that the government should hold negotiations with the PA even if Hamas wins the elections for the Palestinian parliament and becomes a senior partner in the PA leadership.

Senior Israeli politicians have declared recently that if Hamas is successful in the upcoming elections to the Palestinian parliament, Israel will then terminate its contacts with the PA.

But the present survey finds a majority of the public - 50 percent vs. 41 percent - saying that even if Hamas is a senior partner in the PA's leadership, Israel should continue to conduct negotiations with the elected leadership of the Palestinians.

In other words, in contrast to the position of the current political leadership, most of the Jewish public believes Hamas should not be ignored as an important political factor in Palestinian society.

The survey also found that some 57.5 percent of the Jewish public support the unilateral disengagement plan, 35.5 percent oppose it, and 7 percent do not know (last month the rates of support and opposition stood at 56.1 percent and 38.0 percent).

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/587678.html