UPI Poll: No consensus on Jerusalem

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- A UPI-Zogby International poll finds no consensus regarding the disposition of Jerusalem as part of the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Some 6,296 people were asked whether Jerusalem should be divided so it could be the capital for both the Palestinians and Israelis or whether the city should remain under Israeli control.

Just more than one-third -- 33.7 percent -- of respondents said the city should be divided while 31.6 percent said it should be left totally under Israeli control. Another 23.6 percent didn't like either option.

Jerusalem is one of the key issues in any talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. The city contains holy sites of Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

There is no breakdown of how many respondents were Muslim, but of the Jewish respondents -- a relatively small sample -- 49.2 percent want Jerusalem to stay in Israeli control and 22.9 percent would go along with a partition. Among Roman Catholics asked, 35.6 percent thought partition could work while 27.7 percent sought to retain Israeli control.

The more politically liberal the respondents considered themselves, the more likely they were to agree to a partition of Jerusalem -- 56.1 percent of progressives went that route while 74.2 percent of those who said they were very conservative wanted the city to remain in Israeli control.

The Zogby interactive poll, conducted Dec. 4-6, had 6,296 U.S. respondents, giving the data a margin of error of 1.3 percentage points.