According to a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, two-thirds of Palestinians surveyed support the wave of knife stabbings of Israelis and view an armed Intifada as “serving the Palestinian national interests in ways that negotiations would not”.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas attributed this high support for lone-wolf attacks to the current wave of despair among Palestinians over the failure of the peace process and to the fact that most Palestinians have literally given up on the prospect of ever arriving at the two-state solution to their problem.

The ongoing wave of violence has so far killed 117 Palestinians and 17 Israelis. If the current confrontations continue, about half of the Palestinians surveyed believe it could escalate into an armed Intifada.

Moreover, a majority supports ending the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to the Oslo accords, and a similar majority doubts Abbas is serious about abandoning the agreement.

If presidential elections were held today, a Hamas candidate would clearly win against Abbas, the findings show, and this should give food for thought to the Palestinian leadership.

More worrisome is the indication that there is growing rejection of the two-state solution, with two-thirds believing that it is no longer viable because of the settlement expansion and three quarters believing that the chances that a Palestinian state will be established in the next five years are slim or non-existing.

Israel, with its obdurate prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the helm, is mainly to blame for the way things stand in Palestine: the “Oslo generation”, of young people aged between 18 and 22, is the most supportive of an armed Intifada and stabbings, and least supportive of the two-state solution.

His Majesty King Abdullah has repeatedly warned Israel not to abandon the two-state solution as the only reasonable way to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a peaceful solution.

It might be that it is too late to rectify the situation in the West Bank, as the growing violence between the two sides has only hardened their respective stances, pushing them farther apart on the prospect of a peaceful settlement.

The only beneficiaries of the ongoing deadlock in Palestine are the enemies of peace who could wreak even more havoc on the area unless common sense starts to prevail among Israelis, responsible for the hardening of the young Palestinians’ position.

The future is indeed bleak, the findings of the survey show, and this should sound the alarm among those who care to see peace prevail in the holy land.