Poll says Israelis losing faith in Oslo peace deals

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israelis are losing faith in the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians, although they still overwhelmingly support making peace with their Arab neighbors, an Israeli pollster said on Tuesday.

Dr Tamar Hermann from Tel Aviv University said support for the Oslo framework, a step-by-step approach to a final peace, dropped sharply in October to an all time low of 35 percent amid the worst Israel-Palestinian violence in years.

Hermann, however, said more than 70 percent of Israelis still supported making peace with their Arab neighbors including the Palestinians.

"They (Israelis) have not given up on the very process of negotiating with the Palestinians. They just don't think they should continue in that framework," Hermann said.

The Oslo accords which were negotiated in the Norwegian capital and signed in the United States in September 1993, put Israel and the Palestinians on the road to peace.

Under the deal, which involved procedures for limited Palestinian self-rule, the sides agreed to conduct phased negotiations on less complex issues first and more emotive disputes later in order to build trust between the sides.

Israel and the Palestinians tried to wrap up the negotiations at a U.S.-sponsored summit in July, but they failed to resolve some of the biggest stumbling blocks that remained such as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.

Deadlocked peace talks were further damaged after the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in years broke out on September 28. At least 176 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed.

Hermann said 71 percent of Israelis questioned in the poll felt that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's behavior "is increasingly that of a terrorist."

"He (Arafat) is perceived as being responsible for what has happened in the last few weeks...It (the violence) is perceived by Israelis as a strategy and not as a spontaneous uprising," she said.

The poll, which is run by the Tami Steinmetz Research Institute for Peace, questioned 585 respondents. The margin of error was approximately 4.5 percent.

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