The national consensus is a clearcut rejection of the Palestine Liberation Organization as a possible partner in the peace negotiations, declared Pinhas Yurman, director of the public opinion polls division of the Israel information Center a government operated center.
Yurman was reacting to The New York Times interview last Wednesday in which President Carter was quoted as saying: “Sorvey results brought to my attention attest to the fact that the great majority of the Israeli public supports a ‘generous settlement’ with the Palestinians.” In the same interview, Carter compared the Palestinian cause to the American civil rights movement.
Yurman said Carter’s statement as astonishing. “As a person who regularly follows local opinion polls I know of no poll whose interviewees were asked about a generous settlement with the Palestinians.” He said that a poll taken among Jews in Israeli cities last February found 81 percent expressing “firm opposition to the PLO’s participation in the political negotiations atmed at bringing about a settlement between Israel and its neighbors.”
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