The present poll was conducted on the 16th of January, two days after the killing of five Palestinians by the Israeli military in Hebron and Gaza. A limited strike and mourning had been declared (January 15-18) in the West Bank and Gaza. A curfew imposed by the Israeli military on Hebron ended the morning of the day that the poll took place. At the same time, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators were still debating the details of a possible agreement with no news significant progress, and somewhat indifferent to, the Palestinians were frustrated with the Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles (DOP). Support for the DOP had already fallen to 41% in December 1993 (as compared with 65% in September).

The Surveys and Polls Unit provides an analysis of the results of this most recent public opinion poll that has been conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In addition to this analysis, the Policy Analysis Unit at CPRS is in the process of preparing a study on Palestinian Opposition and its future opitions. This study will be released in the coming few days. CPRS plans to continue its study of Palestinian political attitudes. It will conduct a monthly poll on elections, political agreements, political affiliation, and other important topics.

CPRS researchers are constantly trying to refine and improve the validity of the research methodology and the reliability of the collected data. Towards these ends, fifty-four well-trained field workers were instructed to visit areas (interview stations) that attract a wide range of social groups and strata. These stations included, among others: bus/car stations that lead to villages and refugee camps, main markets, city centers, the entrances of mosques, hospitals, universities, .., etc.

So far, the majority of our data collectors have participated in a number of workshops where the goals of the poll were discussed. They were also lectured on sampling techniques, survey methods, scientific research, and field work. Data collectors worked in groups supervised by qualified researchers. CPRS researchers made random visits to interview stations and female so as to ensure the representation of women in the sample. All interterviews took place on the same day and were conducted on a face-to-face basis. Data collectors were assigned a limited number of interviews (an average of 30) to allow for careful and intensive interviewing. Data were processed through the use of SPSS, a computer package that is able to detect illogical answers and other inconsistencies.

As to the questionnaire instrument, it was constructed by several Palestinian social scientists and researchers. As an attempt to identify the possible voting patterns of "independents" and "others", the question on political affiliation was revised from previous polls to include the following choices:, the "nationalist independents", "Islamic independents", "no one", and "other political organizations (specify)".

A poll, such as this one, may have a number of limitations. Errors may have resulted from non-response which is estimated at 10%, and which was not included in the sample size. Heavy rain in the West Bank contributed to higher non-response rate. Women comprised the majority of non- respondents probably due to the public forum for the interviews, particularly if the data collector was male. Some people refused to respond because they believed that their opinions were irrelevant and were not taken into account by the Palestinian leadership when making decisions. A number of non-respondents explained their position as a statement against Palestinian-Israeli agreements.

Also, there were to two terms used in the questionnaire, "Collective leadership" and "the Group of 10", that were not equally understood by all individuals in the sample. We anticipated some confusion over these relatively new terms and provided our data collectors with standard definitions to use if the respondents requested clarifications.