JERUSALEM — During three months of foundering peace talks overshadowed by violence, the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has lost popular support and is now viewed as less legitimate than the Islamist government of rival group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to a poll released Monday.
The survey is the latest sign that the Bush administration's effort to shore up secular Palestinian leaders and isolate Hamas is failing. That effort, part of a strategy to stabilize the Middle East through an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, includes diplomatic support and promises of economic aid to the West Bank.
Polling data collected in the West Bank and Gaza this month show that Hamas, which rejects peace talks and continues to fight Israel, has gained sharply in popularity since December, reversing a two-year decline.
The poll was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an independent think tank the administration has cited in the past to make the case that its strategy in the region is working.
According to the poll, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would receive 47% of the vote if the Palestinian Authority held presidential elections today, compared with 46% for the U.S.-backed incumbent, Mahmoud Abbas.
The center's polling in December showed Abbas defeating Haniyeh in such an election by 56% to 37%.
Haniyeh was prime minister in a power-sharing government that Abbas dissolved in June after Hamas gunmen evicted Abbas' Fatah-led security forces from Gaza. Abbas completed the violent split by appointing a West Bank government led by former World Bank economist Salam Fayyad.
Hamas' armed takeover in Gaza badly hurt the movement's popularity. When pollsters asked in December which Palestinian government was the legitimate authority, 38% of the respondents said Fayyad's and 30% said Haniyeh's.
In this month's poll, 34% said Haniyeh's government was the legitimate one; 29% said it was Fayyad's. Nearly one-fourth said both governments were illegitimate.
"This is a major shift in Hamas' favor," said Khalil Shikaki, head of the survey group. "Abbas and Fayyad had a six-month window of opportunity to take advantage of their support. Last summer Hamas was shunned. It had lost the ability to sell its political line. Now it's regaining that ability, at the expense of Abbas and his team."
Shikaki and other Palestinian analysts attributed the turnabout to several factors:
