What does the Arab (or Muslim) street think? Whom does it hate and whom does it admire? These questions have reverberated among us from the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser to Hassan Nasrallah today. But who speaks on behalf of this "street"? Due to the lack of reliable public opinion polls, authoritarian rule and media outlets that are trained what to say, it's not surprising that the assessments of the man on the street are so incomprehensible and based merely on impressions and gut feelings.

It's against this barren backdrop that the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project published a survey last week that was carried out in the Muslim countries. The Washington-based center invested a great deal of effort in its survey on Islamic issues - its second one ever. It included Arab countries and populations in Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and the Arabs of Israel, as well as the non-Arab Muslim countries of Turkey, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

In every country, between 1,000 and 1,200 men and women aged 18 and above were interviewed; the sample was chosen scientifically. The interviews were carried out in the interviewees' mother tongue in May and June last year. What hits the Israeli reader are the findings about the negative attitudes toward Jews. In Egypt, Lebanon and the PA, 95 to 98 percent of the respondents held negative views of this kind. We therefore have significant evidence on the extent of Arab anti-Semitism. This hostility is prevalent in non-Arab Muslim countries as well - it encompasses three-quarters of the citizens of Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia and 60 percent of Nigerian Muslims.

But what concerned the respondents above all was the rift between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, which, as far as they were concerned, exists everywhere. That's the opinion of around 95 percent of the Muslims in Lebanon, three-quarters of the Palestinians, some 60 percent of those in Egypt and Jordan, about half of the Turks and even 42 percent of the Arabs of Israel.

In this respect, the most divided country, other than Iraq, is Lebanon. And the rift, when compared with the Pew Research Center's survey two years ago, is deepening. Hezbollah has the support of all the Shi'ites as well as 2 percent (!) of the Sunnis (while 95 percent are hostile to it). Among Christians, one-quarter support it and the rest are opposed.

Of course, this phenomenon is linked to the dramatic change in political alliances; if before the Lebanese civil war the Sunnis were hostile to the Christians and tended to favor the idea of a Greater Syria, a quarter century later they have become Lebanese patriots who are hostile to Syria, especially since the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri. And they are suspicious of Hezbollah, Syria's ally.

An important, if less serious, rift is also seen in Egypt. Despite the official myth about the ancient unity of the nation, half the Muslims view the Copts negatively and with suspicion. (The folk belief among Muslims in Egypt is that "the Copts have blue bones.")

Obviously the importance of public opinion in non-democratic regimes is limited. At most, it draws the boundaries of "what is reasonable" and as such exerts indirect pressure on the rulers. But as long as the issue is what the rulers consider a matter of supreme interest, public opinion to them is totally insignificant.

Thus, for example, more than half the respondents in Egypt and Jordan expressed a positive attitude toward Hamas, but this did not prevent President Hosni Mubarak from building an "iron wall" between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Neither he nor King Abdullah of Jordan agreed to cut off diplomatic ties with Israel during Operation Cast Lead. Nevertheless, such widespread hostility has unfortunate significance regarding Israel's chances of integrating into the region, at least with its close neighbors, even after a peace agreement is signed with Syria and the PA.

In conclusion, in view of the crisis in relations between Israel and Turkey, it's interesting to note that 60 percent of Turks view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime negatively. This may be connected to the fact that most Turks are Sunnis. But how can we explain the finding that 70 percent of them are hostile to Hamas and only 5 percent support it? It turns out that Arab and Muslim public opinion is divided from the ethnic point of view, but united in its anti-Semitism.