RAMALLAH, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- A majority among the Palestinians are not optimistic over the U.S. President Donald Trump's role in pushing forward the stalled peace process in the Middle East, a Palestinian poll suggested Wednesday.
The poll, which was conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, said that 79.3 percent of the respondents found that Trump was not serious in calling for the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.
It added that 11.9 percent of the respondents believed that he (Trump) was serious, while the rest did not specify their position.
The poll also suggested that 42.9 percent of the respondents deemed a decline in the U.S. role in the peace process, while 42.8 percent said there had been no change compared to the previous administrations.
The poll also showed that 54 percent of the respondents advised the Palestinian leadership to accept the resumption of the peace talks "if Trump called for them, but on condition that the Israeli settlements must stop."
However, 30.6 percent refused to resume the negotiations.
The latest peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians ended at the end of March 2014 after nine months of U.S.-sponsored talks without progress to resolve the decades-old conflict.
According to the poll, 54.2 percent supported the resumption of negotiations with the Israelis in principle, while 41.9 percent opposed it.
However, 35.6 percent of the respondents believed that the peace process has "died and cannot be revived," while 39.6 percent said that the peace process is going through difficult circumstances and its future is unclear.
The poll showed that 19.7 percent said that the peace process is still alive and can be resumed.
Moreover, 28.6 percent said they support the resumption of military operations against Israeli targets as an appropriate response in the current political circumstances while the rest opposed this option.
The poll also said that 54.7 percent of the respondents supported the Arab peace initiative, which is proposed in 2002 to normalize Arab relations with Israel, while 36.1 percent opposed it.
The poll is conducted on a random sample of 1,199 Palestinians above the age of 18 in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Aug. 13-21.
