(MENAFN- The Peninsula) ayeni olusegun |
The Peninsula
The Executive Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and Coordinator of the Arab Opinion index (AOI) Dr. Mohammad Al Masri, disclosed the index shows Arabs feel they belong to one nation, regardless of their differences.
The AOI survey results put 80% of the Arab public in agreement that the peoples of the region constitute one nation, compared to 17% who believe that they represent different nations and peoples with weak ties between them.
Speaking to The Peninsula after the launch of the index yesterday at the Arab Center for Research and Policy, Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, Dr. Al Masri said the study, in its eighth edition, has shown Arab unity on critical regional issues like Palestine.
“I think one of the most important things in this survey that we can talk about is a belief among the people of the Arab world that they belong to one nation, even if there are some distinctions between one country and another,” Dr. Al Masri said.
“They belong to the same nation and feel that the connections, the cultures, the language are binding them in one nation and this has been examined repeatedly since 2011.”
According to the report, 84% of respondents agree that Israel's policies threaten the security and stability of the Arab region. Also, 78% of the public opinion agrees that US policies threaten the security and stability of the region. The survey discovered that 84% of respondents reject their countries recognising Israel, compared to 8% who said they accept their countries recognising Israel. However, half of those who agreed that their countries recognise Israel conditioned the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
“Another important thing in the survey is the support for the Palestinian cause and refusal to recognise Israel,” Dr. Al Masri said.“They (Arabs) believe Israel is a colonial state that has dismissed the Palestinians' rights and has no self-determination for the Palestinians. Since 2011 (using the AOI), until now, the Arab people have expressed this view,” he added.
The survey also found out that 52% of Arab citizens believe that their countries are headed in the wrong direction, compared to 42% who say they are headed in the right direction.
Dr. Al Masri said in the survey the Arab people support the democratic system. He added that most people believe the democratic system is suitable for their country as the governing system.
He said that the survey is according to the best practices and to the international standards and hoped decisionmakers and politicians would benefit from the results, using it to draft policies that help them understand the attitudes of their people.
“Maybe now it's the time for the media to focus on the results that maybe would draw the attention of the decision-makers and the policymakers,” he added.
The 2022 Arab Opinion Index is based on the findings from face-to-face interviews conducted with 33,300 individuals in 14 Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Mauritania. The Arab Opinion Index remains the largest public opinion survey in the Arab world.
The survey sampled a randomised, stratified, multi-stage, self-weighted clustered approach. The overall samples guarantee probability-proportional-to-size (PPS), ensuring fairness in representing various population segments.
A total of 920 researchers put in more than 72,000 hours to carry out these surveys. The team covered a total of 890,000 kilometres across the population clusters sampled.
The data of the countries surveyed are classified according to the geographical regions of the Arab world, namely, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia (The Arab Maghreb), Egypt and Sudan (The Nile Valley), Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq (The Arab Mashreq), and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar (The Gulf).