Polling your face off

First up, the Israeli assault on Gaza has had a predictable effect:

'Israel Defense Forces attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have boosted the popularity of the Islamist group's leader Ismail Haniyeh among Palestinians in that territory and in the West Bank, according to a poll released Monday.

The survey by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that if new presidential elections were held, Haniyeh would receive 47 percent of the vote compared with 46 percent for President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah faction.

The figures represented a sharp strengthening of Haniyeh's popularity. He served as prime minister in the Hamas-led government Abbas dismissed after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June.

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The center's previous poll, in December, gave Gaza-based Haniyeh just 37 percent of a potential presidential vote compared with 56 percent for Abbas, whose peace efforts with Israel are opposed by Hamas.

The latest poll was conducted shortly after Israel ended an offensive in the Gaza Strip in early March that killed more than 120 Palestinians, almost half of them were identified as civilians.'

Ma'an has more:

'The same poll suggests that if elections were to be held between Fatah's strong man Marwan Barghouthi, who is serving a lifetime sentence in an Israeli jail, and Isma'il Haniyeh, then the former would receive 57% and the latter only 38%.

The sample of respondents was 1270 Palestinians from 127 areas.
Of the respondents 34% claimed that they would boycott elections if they were to be held between Abbas and Haniyeh, whilst 24% would boycott elections between Barghouthi and Haniyeh.

The poll likewise revealed that the gap between Hamas and Fatah had also lessened - with 35% claiming they would vote Hamas and 42% saying they would vote Fatah.

As for support of the Palestinian caretaker government headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, 38% said that they would prefer the government to continue whilst 55% of the said that the government should be toppled.'

This just underscores the fact that, as Helena Cobban writes, those interested in political progress cannot avoid engaging with Hamas any longer.

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Next up, an Opinion Business Research poll (.pdf) conducted between 24 February-5 March found that:

• a majority (53%) of Iraqis view the "surge" as unsuccessful in reducing the violence in Baghdad. Among residents of Baghdad, this rose to 55%.

• 70% of Iraqis - 60% of Sunnis, 78% of Shia and 64% of Christians - want coalition forces to "leave" the country. Of this 70%, 65% of Iraqis (64% of Sunnis, 68% of Shia) want all coalition forces to leave the country "immediately / as soon as possible". A further 13% want a full withdrawal within six months.

• a plurality (48%) think that, so far, the 2003 invasion was not in Iraq's best interests.

• a slight majority of Iraqis (51%) say that they are better off under "the present political system" than they were under Saddam Hussein.

These results largely fit with another recent poll (.pdf) of Iraqi public opinion, conducted for the BBC between 12-20 February. It found that:

• 50% of Iraqis think the 2003 invasion was wrong (23% "somewhat wrong", 27% "absolutely wrong"), while 49% think the invasion was right (21% "absolutely right", 28% "somewhat right").

• asked whether, in the country as a whole, security in the past six months has become better or worse, 36% said "better", 26% said "worse" and 37% said "stayed about the same". Of those who said it had become "worse", a plurality (20%) said that "US forces operations" were mostly to blame.

• a majority of Iraqis (66%) want a unified Iraq with a central government in Baghdad.

• 4% of Iraqis have a "great deal of confidence" in U.S. occupation forces. By contrast, 46% have no confidence "at all", while 33% have "not very much confidence".

• a majority of Iraqis feel the Iraqi government has done a bad job (30% say "quite a bad job", 26% say a "very bad job"), and a majority (58%) disapprove of Nouri al-Maliki's performance as Prime Minister.

• a majority of Iraqis feel the U.S. and other coalition forces have done a bad job in Iraq since the invasion (35% say "quite a bad job", 35% say a "very bad job").

• only 7% of Iraqis "strongly support" the presence of Coalition troops in Iraq. By contrast, 41% "strongly oppose" this presence, and a further 31% "somewhat oppose" it.

• 53% of Iraqis say that the "surge" in Baghdad and neighbouring provinces has made security worse in those areas, while a further 10% say it has had "no effect". A plurality of Iraqis think that the "surge" has made security worse for Iraq as a whole, worsened conditions for political dialogue, made it harder for the Iraqi government to carry out its work and worsened the pace of economic development in Iraq (in all these cases, a large majority of Iraqis thought the surge had either had no effect or made the situation worse).

• a plurality of Iraqis (38%) want Coalition forces to leave the country immediately.

• overall, 61% of Iraqis think the U.S. presence in Iraq is making security there "worse". Only 27% think it is making security better.

• 42% of Iraqis view attacks on Coalition forces as acceptable, while 57% say they are not acceptable. This result marks a change from previous polls, which registered majority support for resistance attacks against the occupying forces.

• A majority of Iraqis (59%) think security in Basra has either improved (28%) or stayed the same (31%) since the British withdrawal. 38% say it has deteriorated.

• A plurality of Iraqis (46%) think the security situation would improve if U.S. forces left the country entirely. A further 23% say it would remain "about the same".

In short, most Iraqis think that the Coalition presence is making security worse and that the "surge" has failed to improve either security or the political process. Most Iraqis oppose the Coalition presence and a majority or a plurality, depending on the poll, want a full withdrawal either now or in the near future.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander