(10/06/11) -

Britons and Canadians More Open to Palestinian State than Americans

However, practically half of respondents in the three countries believe that a solution to the conflict will never be reached.

The call issued by Palestinian leaders last month to request full status as a state in the United Nations (UN) has been heeded differently by people in Britain, Canada and the United States, a new three-country Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In the online survey of representative national samples, 49 per cent of Britons say they would want their government to recognize a Palestinian state, while 18 per cent disagree. In Canada, 43 per cent of respondents also want their own government to recognize a Palestinian state, while 31 per cent disagree. Americans are evenly divided on this issue (Agree 34%, Disagree 34%).

The results are almost identical on the question of what the UN should do with this request from the Palestinian Authority, with half of Britons (50%), a slightly smaller proportion of Canadians (45%) and a third of Americans (34%) calling for the world body to support the bid for full statehood.

Britons are more likely to say they sympathize with the Palestinians (20%) than with the Israelis (10%) when thinking about the Middle East. Conversely, Canadians tend to side with Israel (17% to 12%), while Americans choose Israel over the Palestinians by a 6-to-1 margin (30% to 5%).

More than half of Canadians (53%), half of Americans (49%) and a slightly smaller proportion of Britons (45%) believe that a solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will never be reached.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Mario Canseco, Vice President, Angus Reid Public Opinion
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com

Methodology: From September 28 to September 30, 2011 Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,003 Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panellists, 1,007 American adults who are Springboard America panellists, and 2,115 British adults who are Springboard UK panellists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1% for Canada and the United States, and 2.2 per cent for Great Britain. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of Canada, the US and Great Britain. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.