12. 2013 EDITORIAL Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. With 2013 slowly coming to an end, the question left hanging over Palestinian poli­tics is whether the resumption of the peace negotiations between the Palestinian Au­thority(PA) and Israel, and which have commenced last July 2013, will produce any worthwhile results. Other important news was the July military coup in Egypt, which robbed the de facto Hamas govern­ment of its biggest regional ally. Our part­ner Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre(JMCC) carried out a public opinion poll in the occupied Palestinian Territory (oPT) to discover how recent events have impacted on the Palestinian population at large. For a large section of the Palestinian popu­lation, it was clearly a mistake to resume peace negotiations with Israel, 67.7% of whom believe nothing will come at the end of the 9-month negotiation period. Thus while Israeli settlement activity has only gained momentum since the talks began, most Palestinians are questioning the faith that the PA has placed in the peace ne­gotiations. This could explain the drop in Fatah’s popularity over the last year, from 36.8% to 32%, suggesting the party is being punished. Similarly, this lack of faith in the negotiations is changing public per­ceptions: only 32.3% of those interview­ed consider peaceful negotiations the best method to achieve the goals of the Pale­stinian people, down from 36% in March 2013(before the talks had started). Events in Gaza have also left their mark. Since the military took control in Egypt, the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been at a practical stand­still, cutting Gaza’s most important eco­nomical umbilical cord. Though this has further added pressure on the already fragile Hamas leadership in Gaza, 47.5% of those interviewed felt that Egypt’s ani­mosity towards Gaza would not encourage Hamas to take a more reconciliatory posi­tion towards their political rivals Fatah. It is also interesting that support for Hamas has only dropped slightly to 16%. There­fore, it is too early to know if the Egyptian blockade will have long lasting effects on Hamas’ position. Finally, it seems the Palestinian public is becoming increasingly disillusioned. Not only has support for both the main politi­cal parties fallen, but an increasingly large segment the population(39.1%) does not trust any of the political fractions. To make matters worse, 49.3% of respondents do not expect Fatah and Hamas to put aside their differences and form a national unity government. Below you will find the complete study. We hope you find it interesting reading! With kind regards from Jerusalem, Your FES East-Jerusalem team Design: ery foto Seite 1