{This column was first printed in the March 28, 2008 edition of The Jewish State}

If we never successfully figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg, is it proper to assign blame to either one for the sins of both?

Many of us have, with the best of intentions, done just that, as we hold on to some receding ray of hope for peace in Israel.

We will routinely say, "It's the leadership that's the problem with the Palestinians, not the people." It's a noble tack, I admit, but do we really know which came first, the Palestinian leaders or the Palestinians? Do the Palestinians get the leaders they want, or do the leaders get the Palestinians they want?

That question appeared to be answered by the election of the Islamist Iranian satellite Hamas, a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel, by the Palestinian people in January 2006.

But then people said, "Well, Fatah was corrupt, and the election was a vote against corruption, not a mandate for perpetual war."

Such apologia have been far more difficult to find since the March 17 release of the new survey conducted by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR).

The survey, titled "Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 27," finds that the "moderate" Fatah government led by Mahmoud Abbas and Western darling Salam Fayyad endured a sharp drop in public support in the West Bank and Gaza, while Hamas, led by Ismail Haniyeh, has won over another 10 percent of the Palestinian population.

And it's not just a superficial yea-or-nay vote, either. The pollsters found that not only is the Hamas leadership more "popular," but the Palestinian public has offered more support for Hamas's positions and policies, as well as its legitimacy.

Most politicians love focus groups and opinion polls because the polls basically tell them what to do. So, reading the polls, how does a politician or party gain the favor of the Palestinian "street"?

"These changes might have been the result of several political developments," according to the survey's Main Findings, "starting with the breaching of the Rafah border with Egypt during the last week of January and first week of February, followed by the Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip leading to a large number of Palestinian causalities and an increase in the number of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip against Israeli towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon, the two suicide attacks in Dimona and Jerusalem leading to the death of nine Israelis, and ending with the failure of the Annapolis process in positively affecting daily life of Palestinians in the West Bank, in stopping Israeli settlement activities, or in producing progress in final status negotiations."

In other words, what floats the average Palestinian's boat? Bombing a border wall with Egypt, launching rockets at innocent Israelis, suicide bombing Israeli towns, and shooting up a yeshiva library while killing as many inside as possible.

What are some of the average Palestinian's pet peeves? Prolonged exposure to peace negotiations and Jewish villages.

For a while, Fatah held a sizeable advantage in head-to-head polls with Hamas, if new parliamentary elections were to be held immediately. No mas.

The survey finds that the gap has narrowed from 18 percent to seven, putting Fatah up only 42 percent to 35 percent. In December, it was 49 percent to 31 percent.

Eleven percent remain undecided in both polls. That would be the "swing" vote, perhaps waiting to see how many dead Jews each party is willing to offer for their vote.

Another bad omen for Fatah is that it is slightly more popular in Gaza than it is in the West Bank.

In December, polls showed Abbas would beat Haniyeh in a presidential election 56 percent to 37 percent. The new survey shows that Haniyeh would win a nail-biter if elections were held today, 47 percent to 46. (Haniyeh shouldn't get too excited; he loses badly in a head-to-head matchup with jailed intifada veteran and renowned Jew-killer Marwan Barghouti, 57 percent to 38.)

The other findings are similar — the legitimacy of the governments, the favorable-unfavorable ratings of each administration, approval rating comparisons, etc. In fact, although Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 is still rejected across the board, the Palestinians have moved away from blaming Hamas for their actions.

"The tendency to avoid blaming Hamas alone for the continuation of the split reflects a change in public perception regarding the positions of the two factions regarding return to dialogue as an exit from the current crisis," the findings state. "Support for Fatah's and Abbas's position, which demands a return to the status quo ante as a precondition to dialogue drops from 46 percent last September to 39 percent in this poll. Support for Hamas's position, which calls for unconditional dialogue, increases from 27 percent to 37 percent during the same period."

Here are the survey results vis-a-vis the peace process:

• "66 percent support and 32 percent oppose the Saudi initiative, which calls for Arab recognition of and normalization of relations with Israel after it ends its occupation to Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and after the establishment of a Palestinian state.
• 55 percent support and 44 percent oppose mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people as part of a permanent status agreement.
• But 80 percent believe that the negotiations launched by the Annapolis conference will fail while 14 percent believe it will succeed.
• Moreover, 68 percent believe that the chances for the establishment of a Palestinian state during the next five years are non-existent or weak and 30 percent believe chances are fair or high.
• 75 percent believe that the meetings between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert are not beneficial and should be stopped while only 21 percent believe they are beneficial and should be continued.
• 64 percent support and 33 percent oppose launching rockets from the Gaza Strip against Israeli towns and cities such as Sderot and Ashkelon.
• An overwhelming majority of 84 percent support and 13 percent oppose the bombing attack that took place in a religious school in West Jerusalem. Support for this attack increases in the Gaza Strip (91 percent) compared to the West Bank (79 percent)."

The emphasis on the last poll result is added (though they meant to write "shooting," not "bombing," presumably), because it is the nutshell in which the psyche of the Palestinian "street" resides.

Each poll conducted by PSR — which, by the way, uses sample sizes large enough to trust the results, and reputable Israeli polling institutions have collaborated with PSR on past surveys — since the beginning of 2008 shows the same thing: an upward trend in popularity for anyone that can accomplish significant feats of violence on behalf of the Palestinian people.

That means that these poll results weren't a surprise to Haniyeh; he knew exactly how to win over the Palestinian people.

So disciples of Edward Said can jump up and down all they want about "Western imperialists," but here in America, President George W. Bush's approval ratings plummeted with each kernel of news about violence committed against terrorists on behalf of Americans, Europeans, Iraqis, and the general cause of freedom. By contrast, in the Palestinian "street," senseless violence committed on behalf of senseless, violent people against innocent teenage students is enough to solidify your lead in the polls.

Said's glazed over, proudly subversive followers would call drawing attention to this problem a form of "post-colonial" hysteria. But these PSR surveys are the sugar in Said's engine of intellectual Orientalism. They blow to pieces the apologetic theories of the leftist American academe, toppling its ivory tower and its minions.

Because the truth — unfortunately for Palestinian sympathizers and terrorist apologists — is right here in the PSR's findings: one hand may be shaking that of a Western diplomat, as long as the other hand is holding a grenade with Israel's name on it, ready to spill innocent blood.