In a recent study by the Poll Center in Arab American University that included both genders equally of over 18 years old, in the period between Feb. 10th, 2021 – Feb. 16th, 2021 on a random sample of 1122 participants (60% from the West Bank and 40% from Gaza), participants were asked about the political and electoral situations in Palestine.
The Palestinian people think that changing the American government position regarding Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is the most important condition for restoring normal Palestinian-American relations.
Participants were asked about their evaluation to some cases that the Palestinian Authority needs to take into consideration before restoring the relations with the Americans, and the topics included:
- Changing the American government’s position regarding Jerusalem as the capital of Israel back to what was before Trump.
- Restoring US support to UNRWA.
- Restoring the US support to the Palestinians.
- Changing the US position concerning the annexation of the Golan Heights.
- Reopening the PLO office in Washington.
- Repositioning the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv.
- Reopening the US Consulate in Jerusalem.
In this poll, participants were asked to give a grade out of 100 points to each of the upper mentioned topics, and the answers were calculated as the lowest grade was 0 for the least important topic to 100 for the most important one. If the topic gets a zero, this means that participants thought it is not important in the negotiations to restore the relations, and if it gets 100 points, then it is a very important.
The topic of changing the American government’s position regarding Jerusalem as the capital of Israel took the highest points and came in the 1st place with 92 points. Then restoring of the US support to UNRWA was in the 2nd place as it got 88 points. Whereas changing the US position concerning the annexation of the Golan Heights was in the 3rd place with 81 points. In the 4th place came the restoring of the US support to the Palestinians with 80 points. The reopening of the PLO office in Washington got the 5th place as it got 70 points, where the repositioning of the US Embassy back to Tel Aviv got 64 points in its 6th place. And finally with 51 points came the reopening of the US Consulate in Jerusalem in its 7th place. (See the following chart).
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Concerning the differences between the West Bank and Gaza, it was clear that there is a difference in rating the American support to UNRWA as it got (92 points in Gaza and 86 points in the West Bank). Moreover, there was a noticeable difference in the points of the position regarding Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (95 points in Gaza and 91 points in the West Bank), and also a difference between the importance of the American support to Palestinians (84 points in Gaza and 77 points in the West Bank). (See the below chart)
And when studying the topics from the gender perspective concerning the Palestinian-American relations, there was not a noticeable difference between males and females in this topic. (See the following chart).
