Summary: Introduction
• 91.2% of Palestinians believe that the US role in the peace process is extremely biased in favor of Israel. In addition, only 0.8% think the US role is biased towards the Palestinians, while 4.1% think it plays a neutral role.
• In general, opposition to the peace process has increased from the period of April to May 1997 from 23.1% to 26.3%, whereas the support of the peace process has declined, the same period from 72.9% to 68.8%. Moreover, only 12.5% of Palestinians support the Oslo track whereas 55.1% support it with caution.
• The period between April 3 and May 15, 1997 shows a remarkable change in people’s attitude towards the role of the Palestinian Authority. In comparison with the results of April 97, May's results show a sharp decrease in the percentage of people who think that the PA's role is good by 12.1% (79.6% in last month to 67.5% in May). Also, the percentage of people who think that the PA's role is bad, has remarkably increased by 11.8% (16% to 27.8%).
• In opinions of people towards the role of Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), results show a decline of 6.5% (53.8% in April to 47.3% in May) of the number of people who think PLC's role is good. Also, results show a sharp decline in people's attitude towards the performance of Arafat. A comparison with the poll conducted in April, shows a decrease in Arafat's "good" performance from 67.8% to 53.8% (a decrease by 14%).
• There is also further decline in people's trust in Palestinian leaders. Arafat's approval rating fell from 43.4% to 39.8%. In addition, the number of Palestinians who don't trust any Palestinian figure has increased from 25.9% to 31.3%. Moreover, trust in political or religious factions has also declined. Fateh's percentage declined from 38.5% to 37.9%. Support for Hamas and other Islamic factions declined from 10.6% and 5% to 10.3% and 4.2% respectively.
• A comparison with the April survey shows that the number of Palestinians who believe that corruption in the Palestinian Authority is widespread increased from 34.8% in last month to 38.8% in May. Moreover, the number of people who think that corruption hardly exists in the PA decreased from 11.8% to 8.7%.
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