Doha, Qatar: A public opinion poll among Arab and Palestinian people regarding the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip shows that Arab citizens are squarely affected by this war.
Some 97 percent of respondents to the poll conducted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) have said that they experience psychological stress to varying degrees, because of the war on Gaza, while 84 percent expressed a sense of great psychological stress.
On Wednesday, ACRPS announced the results of the Arab and Palestinian public opinions regarding the Israeli war on Gaza Strip. The poll was carried out on a sample of 8,000 respondents from both genders in 16 Arab communities.
At a press conference, Executive Director of ACRPS Mohammad Almasri reviewed the poll which included a combination of questions to poll the opinions of citizens in the Arab region concerning critical topics associated with the Israeli war on Gaza Strip.
Almasri noted that about 80 percent of respondents reported that they regularly follow news of the war, compared to 7 percent who said that they do not, a further indication that the Arab public sees this war as a local event. To access the news 54 percent of respondents relied on television, compared to 43 percent who relied on the Internet.
There is an Arab consensus to stand with the Palestinian people, Almasri affirmed, adding that 92 percent of respondents agree with that opinion, of them 69 percent expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip, whilst 23 percent of them reported that they stand by the Palestinian people but have odds with the Palestinian resistance factions, Almasri underlined.
The results highlighted the Arab public’s assessment of the policies of regional and international powers towards the war on Gaza, indicating that Arab public opinion opposes the policy of the United States of America towards the war on Gaza, as 94 percent of respondents underscored their position as bad and very bad, Almasri noted.
He indicated that 76 percent of respondents affirmed that the position of the United States on the war in Palestine has become more negative and lost the public’s credibility, as 81 of the respondents included in a sample of the poll emphasized that the United States has not been not serious in establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied territories since 1967 (West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem), with 77 percent of Arab respondents agreeing that the United States and the Israeli entity are the greatest threat to the security and stability of the region.
Almasri outlined that 92 percent of Arab street respondents unanimously agreed that Palestine is the cause of all Arab nations and not only of the Palestinians, pointing out that such a percentage is unprecedented when compared with previous results, with 89 percent of respondents refusing for their nations to recognize Israel, compared to only 4 percent of respondents who agree on that.
He noted that there is a near consensus among Palestinian respondents from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, around 95 percent, that safety and freedom of movement between the governorates and cities of the West Bank and their sense of security and personal safety have been affected negatively since October 2023.
The survey is the first of its kind to gauge public opinion on the topic across the Arab region. The fieldwork was conducted from December 12, 2023, to January 5, 2024,
