What is better?

... "peace and full rights or Shahada (martyrdom)?"

11-year-old girls explain.

Condoleezza Rice interview with Cal Thomas - October 2006:

QUESTION: I'd like to know what evidence you have ... What evidence do you have that teaching their schoolchildren at the ages of four and five to be martyrs, to show up in their little uniforms with plastic guns and their headbands, textbooks one grenade plus two grenades equals, you know, three grenades — what evidence do you have out there that if they had an independent state that they would lay down their arms and not complete the mission of killing the Jews and throwing them out?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.

But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.

QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.

QUESTION: You think you know it?

SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.

QUESTION: Is it because — do you think you know it because you want to believe it or do you think you know it because of conversations with tens, scores, hundreds

SECRETARY RICE: Well, lots of conversations with Palestinians. But also it's — look, if human beings don't want a better future, don't want their children to grow up in peace and have opportunities, then none of this is going to work anyway. But I really believe that the people of the Middle East — not the extremists — want the same things that everyone else wants. I haven't seen a society yet where it wasn't true. Let me put it that way. I haven't seen a society yet where ordinary people, given an opportunity, wouldn't opt for a better life and for peace.

September 2006 poll (a month before the Rice interview):

On the possibility of cloning Hezbollah experience in resistance in action inside the Palestinian territories, (59.3%) supported the idea...

.... .... A rise was noted in the degrees of extremism in political positions and tendencies towards violence as shown in the results of the relevant questions. The public is moving towards extremism as the ratio of Palestinians who believe that the two-state solution (Palestine and Israel) is the best solution for the Palestinian cause [fell] from (52.4%) in June to (46.6%) in September 2006.

With regards to attitudes towards military action, there is consistency in level of support to military operations against Israel targets (43.1%) while there is a slight increase in the ratio of Palestinians who support suicide bombings against Israeli civilians from (44.8%) in June 2006 to (48%) in September 2006.

June 2007:

A poll conducted by the Pew research center reveals that the majority of palestinians favor Iran having nuclear weapons.

Poll reported in the New York Times one week ago today showed that 84 percent of Palestinians supported the murderous attack on yeshiva students at Merkaz HaRav.

The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because the survey, taken last week, showed greater support for violence than any other he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the shooting of rockets at Israel.

“There is real reason to be concerned,” Mr. Shikaki said in an interview at his West Bank office. His Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which conducts a survey every three months, is widely viewed as among the few independent and reliable gauges of Palestinian public opinion.

Also one week ago today, the United States released a $150 million donation to the Palestinian Authority - even though in January a PA "minister" promised 40% to Hamas in Gaza.

Today at Haaretz -

The American officers responsible for monitoring Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the road map peace plan recently criticized the Palestinian Authority .... Specifically, the Americans are concerned that the PA does not engage in the full spectrum of counterterrorism activities, including arrests, interrogation and trial, as it would if it were trying to eradicate the armed wings of Islamic terrorist organizations.

Today in the Associated Press: Israel to make gestures to Palestinians

JERUSALEM - Israel's defense minister has agreed to transfer police cars, rubber-coated steel bullets and night-vision equipment to Palestinian security forces, officials said Wednesday.

I quit.