PA Arabs Most Supportive Among Muslims of Suicide Bombs
(IsraelNN.com) The Muslim world is turning its back on terror, a new poll by the Pew Research Center shows – with one notable exception. No fewer than 75% of Arabs in the Palestinian Authority believe that use of suicide bombers to attack Jews in Israel is at least sometimes justified, the poll of Muslims in 47 countries said. Fewer than one-in-10 PA Arabs see suicide attacks as “never justified,” the Pew poll said.
Muslims are also more prone to be opposed to suicide bombings, the poll showed. The Pew report said support for such bombings and terror tactics has dropped since 2002 in seven of the eight countries where data were available. However, Israeli security sources said that the data on opposing suicide bombings did not mean that Muslims disapproved of use of the tactic against Israel. “Today, suicide bombings have become much more identified with the situation in Iraq, where they are almost a daily occurrence. When Muslims say they opposed its use as a tactic, they are talking about its current use as the weapon of choice by Sunni and Shiite separatists. It may or may not apply to the use of suicide bombings by local terror groups,” the security source said, adding that, “The Palestinians are maybe more of an indication of how Muslims really think about this issue, since for them we are the prime targets of suicide bombings.”
Overall, PA Arabs had the most radical views and were most likely to support all forms of terrorism. 79% of them said they saw Hizbullah terror chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as one of the most admirable figures in the Muslim world – as opposed to 66% of Lebanese who had a negative view of him. And, 60% saw Iran as a model for the Palestinian Authority to follow, the poll said.
PA Arabs Most Supportive Among Muslims of Suicide Bombs
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