A Comment by Tony Sayegh
The current online poll by the Arabic Al-Jazeera is very interesting and illustrative of the attempts of the PA and those behind it (Israel, the U.S., the E.U. and the various puppet Arab regimes) to manipulate Arab public opinion in general and Palestinian public opinion in particular.
The poll was introduced on August 23 and it asks an important and timely question. The question is about who is responsible for the cutoff of electricity in Gaza: the Fayyad government, the Haniyya government or both. This is an important question especially since the quisling Fayyad “government” attempted to use the crisis and the resulting human suffering in Gaza, for which it was directly responsible, to turn the Palestinians in Gaza against Hamas. Fayyad’s henchmen openly asked the population in Gaza to rise up and demonstrate in the streets against Hamas and to blame their suffering on Hamas.
This is a step in a series of steps being taken by the PA to reintroduce chaos and turbulence in Gaza. Strikes and worker stoppages are being attempted again; one of these by medical professionals of all people. Fatah supporters are urged to demonstrate in the streets (Hamas rallies are prohibited in the West Bank), but then when they use violence and are dispersed by the police, they cry foul and Hamas is accused of curtailing the freedom of the press. It is a case of heads I win, tails you lose.
It is all indicative of intelligence and organization the PA does not possess. It is the handiwork of Elliott Abrams all over again and it is attempting the creative chaos, a la the Chilean model that toppled Allende, one more time.
Back to the poll; admittedly its results reflect the views of the larger Arab public, not just that of the Palestinians. However, those views should be similar if not identical. I followed the results from the beginning and initially they remained pretty much stable, as would be expected in a random poll. After 3,000 had taken part the results were: Fayyad responsible (77%), Haniyya responsible (9%) and both responsible (14%). Soon after that, the results began to shift consistently in a decidedly one direction: increased blame for Haniyya and reduced blame for Fayyad. As of this writing, with 17,000 responding, those blaming Fayyad are down to 71% and those blaming Haniyya are up to 16%. Still, it is not what Fayyad and those behind him had hoped for.
The important point is that there is a determined and organized effort to distort and shape Palestinian public opinion. Money being handed over to the PA as well as advice and training by the U.S. and various NGOs are being put to work. This is just a small part of a wider media campaign to sell the PA and the American line to the Palestinian and Arab public. Most of the Palestinian media, including radio and television, is controlled by the PA and its hacks. Similarly, most of the Arab media has been bought and is controlled by Saudi money and is peddling the American line, after all of the disasters that the U.S. has brought to Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Somalia, etc.
It was interesting that on the same day that this Al-Jazeera poll was introduced, the PA surrogate Ghassan Khatib, masquerading as a pollster, published the results of a “poll” showing increased support for the Fayyad “government” and declining support for Hamas. I commented on those results and on who Khatib is in an earlier comment. The contrast between the results of these two polls is dramatic which should totally discredit Khatib and his “polls.”
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