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.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
