Most people support 2-state solution: poll

A slim majority of both Israelis and Palestinians still favour a peace settlement with a Palestinian state alongside Israel, a new poll showed yesterday as Israeli authorities confirmed granting permission to plan the expansion of an Israeli settlement in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron.

The poll found that 51 percent of Palestinians and 59 percent of Israelis still support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tamar Hermann, an Israeli political scientist who conducted the survey with Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, said that under the current circumstances, the results were "not amazingly encouraging," but also "not discouraging."

"It showed there is still some basis for optimism with the right leadership," she said. "Right now I don't see on the horizon a leader on either side willing or capable of using this as a springboard for intensifying the negotiations. But it's not impossible."

The poll comes amid nearly a year of low-level violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Since September, Palestinians have killed 34 Israelis in shootings, stabbings and vehicular attacks. At least 206 Palestinians have died by Israeli fire in the same period, most of whom Israel says were attackers.

Hebron has been a focal point of violence in the West Bank. About 1,000 Jewish settlers live in the city, in heavily fortified enclaves surrounded by tens of thousands of Palestinians.