Most "Israelis" back Barghouti-Shalit trade

Source: AFP, 12-01-2008
OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: A majority of "Israelis" support exchanging jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti for Gilad Shalit, an "Israeli" soldier captured by Gaza militants in 2006, an opinion poll said on Friday. About 71 percent of "Israelis" would support such a deal, while 23 percent oppose it, according to the poll published in the mass-selling Yediot Ahronot newspaper. Barghouti, the West Bank leader of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction and highly popular among Palestinians, was sentenced to five life terms in 2004 for his involvement in deadly attacks on "Israelis". "Israel" has up to now refused to release any Palestinian prisoners with "blood on their hands" - those involved in attacks that killed "Israelis", but the government has been mulling whether to change the criteria to secure the release of Shalit. Barghouti was a key figure in the second Palestinian uprising and is widely viewed as a likely successor to Abbas. The poll was conducted by the Dahaf Institute, questioning 500 people, and had a 4.5-percent margin of error.