Monday, December 06, 2010
Sectarian views of Hizbullah and Hamas
I don't have much time to write about this poll but a few points only. 1) How is it sectarian when Sunnis in Lebanon have the same unfavorable views of Hamas as they do of Hizbullah? It must mean it is political. 2) It is clear that you can't extrapolate from the Sunnis of Lebanon to the Sunnis of the Arab world. 3) There is no factor considered in terms of the general tendency in closed and repressive society for people polled to identify with the views of the government, especially when many of those polls by Gallup and Pew are conducted face-to-face (and even phone polls can be intimidating because people fear their governments are calling).