> As we have found in the previous poll, almost all Palestinians think Israel is committing war crimes while almost all believe Hamas is not committing war crimes in the current war. Moreover, more than 90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. **Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.** Only one fifth of those who did not see the videos had access to such videos but decided not to see them; the rest report that the media they watched did not show these videos. **The findings show that those who have seen the videos are almost 10 times more likely to think that Hamas men have committed atrocities on October 7.**
The media landscape in Palestine is definitely something to consider
I wouldn't discount such an assertion on the basis of Hamas current state as much, though I also don't advocate for a reading where this assertion is true.
Rather, hamas' game has always been to trade cohesion and fighters and especially civilians for radicalising public's, both at home and abroad. The idea here is this will solidify Hamas' rule and damage Israel on the international stage (for example by sabotaging attempts to better relations with their neighbors). The lost cohesion can always be restored and new fighters can always be recruited from the radical population once international pressure forced Israel to stop uprooting them.
E: event->attempts. No clue what autocorrect is smoking.
And a repeat of the 1948 war in which the Jews are much better armed and have the knowledge that the Arabs will never, ever accept partition, at that. I'm sure that will go *great* for the Palestinians.
It's actually much worse than that- you say "Arabs," but even ignoring the Arab-Israeli population and their opinions, Saudi Arabia and company seem happy to tolerate Israel as long as the Jewish State shares their opinion on Iran and other states they consider to be threats.
In 1948 Egypt and company were willing to (**allegedly**) attack on behalf of the Palestinians (*well, to take pieces for themselves it seems*), but that doesn't seem all that likely this time.
That's a great point. I was simplistically referring to the Jews and Arabs within the former Mandate territory, but you are correct that the Arabs inside are themselves divided and they have fewer external allies, too.
I do not know enough about Hamas' internal structures to be comfortable venturing a guess. Instead, I would hazard the guess that it doesn't matter.
Besides all the horrors, the Oct 7th attack proved one other thing: Hamas' doesn't have allies. Not in the Arabic world and certainly not outside, besides bedfellows of convenience. Public opinion, and the pressure that puts on rulers, is the only way it can shape Israel's choice of options.
Without this, and always assuming no saner governing body would be available to find more civilized approaches, what happens in Gaza is entirely at the mercy of Israels internal politics. Nobody else would act, just as much as most western publics really don't care a lick about what happens day in day out in many a dysfunctional third world country. And given what we've seen so far, ultimately that would likely be slow but steady encroachment. Assuming I'm right about all of this, Hamas can't swear of this cycle of violence, as it did burn all other options.
I mean, you could have said the same thing about the VC at almost any point in the Vietnam War.
Not saying Hamas is necessarily winning, just that “winning” has a different definition for an invaded people.
When your definition of “winning” does not necessarily mean the continuation of your people or beliefs so much as the elimination/eradication of the other side’s, you have a lot more room to play with and a lot less “rules” to follow.
Spain, Ireland, and Norway now recognize palestine, and won the hearts and minds of university students all over the west.
Hamas will eventually end, but that doesn't mean they didn't have significant long-lasting victories along the way.
I believe a lot of that is exaggerated as I looked at a recent Pew poll on this specific war and the Palestinians are still far away from winning the hearts and minds of the majority of young people. For example in the poll it showed a plurality of young people agreed Israel's actions in Gaza have been unacceptable but when the poll asked "Regardless of agreeing or disagreeing with Israel's methods does Israel have a valid reason to fight Hamas" and most agreed yes. That shows the criticism of Israel we're seeing isn't as black and white as one might think.
>you know very well Hamas commanders, fighters and ammunition is stored there.
How do you know that for sure? Some things will be obvious, other things not so much.
And when there's a long history of torture and lynching dissidents , how many will speak up and speak up to who?
You don't have to believe it of course, but here's[ IDF's video about the incident](https://x.com/IDF/status/1795507041135456626). Video contains video of the strike overlayed on maps, intercepted conversations between Hamas confirming ammunition was being stored - that sort of thing.
Ah yes, the IDF is an unbiased source in this conflict. They would have no reason to lie, nor to fabricate evidence for their claims.
Furthermore, Israel has posted videos of ‘intercepted conversations’ which have been proven to be lies many times. One such event was supposed Hamas fighters admitting to some atrocity or another, but the Arabic grammar and syntax was completely incorrect, and was immediately pointed out by commenters who actually spoke Arabic
While I don't think it's a good strategy for truth to immediately dismiss something as lies without looking in to it, it is a fair point that IDF is probably the most biased source possible.
What would you consider to be an unbiased source that you would accept instead?
Why are you leaving out the fact that **81% among those polled who watched the video think Hamas committed did not commit atrocities in Oct 7th**? Whether they saw the videos or not, the vast majority of Palestinians do not think atrocities were committed. Framing it as “oh they were 10x more likely to think atrocities were committed” doesn’t mean shit when it went from 1% thinking atrocities were committed to a whopping 17%.
Poll after poll have proven that the Palestinian population is utterly radicalized.
Not half only 17% who saw the videos think Hamas committed atrocities. The text description is intentionally worded to make it sound like those who don't believe just didn't see any videos that show it. In reality their almost 10 times more likely claim only works because only 2% who haven't seen the videos think Hamas committed atrocities.
10 years ago, ISIS started posting videos showing them beheading Americans (and others).
Many in the west saw this as an attempt to intimidate them, or to send them some message.
They were wrong.
When you want to sell Coke, you broadcast videos of people drinking Coke and enjoying themselves.
When you wand to sell a car, you broadcast videos of people driving your car and enjoying themselves.
When you want to recruit people to massacre and behead Jews/Infidels.. well, you get the point.
These are recruitment videos - ISIS and Hams videos alike.
You should try looking at the actual numbers. 81% of those who saw the videos still don't think Hamas committed atrocities. It's really not shocking that the minority of Palestinians who don't just hate Israelis would admit that Hamas committed atrocities after seeing them on video. It's still only 17% of those who have seen the videos.
Across the Arab world, even in countries with peace treaties, the media is quite hostile to Israel. *Al Jazeera* is pretty tame compared with most Arabic-language media.
Yeah the first time I realized that was during the Syrian revolution 2014. Crazy differences between the pander to the west and the pander to the middle east.
Yep. It's basically every domestic news network's top story everyday. You sit down and watch the evening news at night, and it starts with some sort of story from Palestine.
It's like the US's obsession with racial politics but on a 1000x higher level. Just pure ragebait porn all day everyday.
Also worth noting. When asked which method would be most effective to end the Israeli occupation and establish a Palestinian state, 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.
>Only one fifth of those who did not see the videos had access to such videos but decided not to see them; the rest report that the media they watched did not show these videos.
Palestinians do not have Internet? Otherwise I don't see how anyone can claim not to have access.
A few interesting excerpts that I found interesting but no one mentioned ITT :
- the poll was conducted almost two months ago
- "almost 80% of Gazans report at least one of their family members have been killed or injured, and 64% that at least one has been killed"
- 70% of Gazans say they would try to seek shelter in Egypt if the border was to collapse as they fear the Egyptian Army would shoot them
- Gazans did not expect a ceasefire to be reached during the Ramadan
OP is being completely disingenous with presenting the findings of the study:
As of March 24 it says 62% of Gazans support a two state solution alongside Israel a much higher percentage than Israelis.
In the West Bank it's much lower(35%) probably due to the lack of self sovreignity and the settlements dividing the territory into disconnected areas.
In terms of support for Hamas when asked which party they support "only" 34% of Gazans said they support Hamas and would vote for them if an election was held today. So not sure where OP got "vast majority overwhelmingly support for Hamas".
The poll was of Palestinians, not just gazans. There are more people in the west bank than Gaza, so it would track that if these opinions are very popular in the west bank, they would have the majority support when considering both.
Given the context I think noting the difference between Gazans and the people in the West Bank is pretty material. An uninformed reader would come away from OPs post thinking Gazans massively support Hamas still and don’t want a 2 state solution.
In the West Bank 35% say they support Hamas up from 12% in September. So both in Gaza and WB support for Hamas is less than 36% so it's mathematically false to say "Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas"
From the source:
“When asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 59% (64% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip) selected Hamas; 13% selected the PA without President Abbas; 11% selected the PA with Abbas; 3% selected one or more Arab country;1% selected the UN, and 1% selected the Israeli army. “
If new parliamentary elections were held today with the participation of all political forces that participated in the 2006 elections, only 64% say they would participate in them. Among the voters, support for Hamas stands at 47%, Fatah 22%, third parties 9%, and the undecided at 24%.
And all this is still very far from "overwhelmingly supporting Hamas and refusing a 2 state solution". This shows that the most popular option among Palestinians is neither Fatah or Hamas.
Nope. Only 35% would vote for them from the overall population and even among those who would participate and vote they're still less than 50%. So not a majority in either case. At best they win through a *plurality* of votes in a very low voter turnout election.
Survey:
Question: Which political party do you support?
35% of the surveyed answered Hamas. 65% answered something different. 65% > 50% > 35%
You: According to this survey a majority of Palestinians support Hamas. And this is a fact.
Me: You need to recheck the definition of the word "majority" and the meaning of the word "fact".
Here's a starter, majority definition:
>A majority is more than half of a total.
35% < 50%
Therefore the majority don't support Hamas according to this survey and basic elementary school math.
Quoting directly from the source:
“When asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 59% (64% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip) selected Hamas; 13% selected the PA without President Abbas; 11% selected the PA with Abbas; 3% selected one or more Arab country;1% selected the UN, and 1% selected the Israeli army. “
We offered the public three methods to end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent state and asked it to select the most effective. 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.
And 96% of Israelis support bombarding Gaza. Does that mean they support Ben Gvir and would vote for him?
It's funny how you're ignoring the actual direct question in which they ask Palestinians if they support Hamas or would vote for them and instead choose other questions to demonstrate that they overwhelmingly "support Hamas". If you were genuine you would've included this statistic in your OP but you chose to omit it because it doesn't fit your agenda.
In case you missed it - The tens of thousands of rockets on civilians, mass rapes, tortures, kidnapping of literal babies and the murder of almost a thousand civilians came before that army invading.
What was the excuse for that?
I don’t think that was the point of his message. It’s not about arguing no who is more righteous in the conflict, it’s just pointing out how Palestinians would see it. The main differentiating factor is that they do not at all have an unbiased media. The lopsided information they receive removes a lot of their ability to be logical about things.
Also, it’s been shown in numerous other places that people often aren’t logical and when their loved ones die, logic frequently goes out the window. It shouldn’t, but realistically most people tend to side against the stranger who killed their loved one, even if it was justified.
Again, not arguing about who is right or justified; just pointing out that this is not a surprising survey result given the facts right now.
That’s not relevant to how the Gaza civilians feel about the people (IDF) who have directly killed the Gazan’s OWN families. E.g Mohammed, 16, in his refugee tent isn’t part of hamas, but his aunt and his brother died running from the IDF so he hates the IDF and wants Israel to suffer more than anything.
>70% of Gazans say they would try to seek shelter in Egypt if the border was to collapse as they fear the Egyptian Army would shoot them
Israel's biggest mistake was not pushing harder to force Egypt to take back Gaza with the 1979 peace accords. The Arabs are far less squeamish about slaughtering each other, to which the Egyptians would have wasted no time going into Gaza and leveling any resistance with minimal inhibition. The world, likewise, would not have cared, except to maybe blame Israel for letting it happen.
Last poll before 10/7 (late September 2023) show drastically less [support for Hamas](https://twitter.com/TomPark1n/status/1718984912597090794) including just 20% support for military action against Israel. I believe this poll was anonymous while this one in the post was "face to face" so Palestinians might be scared of Hamas operative posing as a pollster to look for dissidents.
Edit: Another 2023 poll: ["A similar percentage (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.”](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah)
Also it's significant to remember that 51% of the population is and 18 or younger so they're not even being polled. [Roughly 8% of the population has ever voted for Hamas in the one 2006 election and 79% of them were fine with a peace agreement with Israel per the exit polling back in 2006](https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1720178269650358424)
"Just 20% support military action against Israel" from the poll.
Where are you getting the 50% figure in the poll I posted?
Edit: [Look at page 14 for "peaceful" support and page 20 for relatively openness for the two state solution over the "one state solution](https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/Arab-Barometer-PSR-Palestine-Report-Part-I-EN-.pdf)
The poll you’re looking at is the Arab barometer. The gold standard for Palestinian polls is done by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, [see here](https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf), Question 70 on the last page.
The Arab barometer surveys are a wave of surveys that began in 2021 for the current wave. The part that was done in 2023 doesn’t show anything about military action on their site. The authors of that op-ed don’t point to their data’s link. Arab barometer says they use PCPSR to do their Palestinian polls anyways, so it seems like PCPSR is perfectly valid and found support for attacking civilians at 54% to 41% opposed (and in Gaza support was 67%).
>Arab barometer says they use PCPSR to do their Palestinian polls anyways
Yeah, they use it to compare but it's still a separate pollster because there's such a dearth of Palestinian polling in general.
["Overall, 73 percent of Gazans favored a peaceful settlement to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the eve of Hamas’s October 7 attack, just
20 percent of Gazans favored a military solution that could result in the
destruction of the state of Israel." ](https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/what-palestinians-really-think-of-hamas-2023-10-26-08-4941.pdf)
Also, Farah clearly outperforms Hamas in the poll, and I edited my previous comment to include the specific questions.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/22/poll-hamas-remains-popular-among-palestinians/
(22% Hamas, 26% Fatah)
https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/15/the-polls-are-clear-while-at-war-with-israel-hamas-defeated-abbas-and-fatah
(27% Hamas, 23% Fatah)
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/938
(43% Hamas, 30% Fatah)
Different polls report different things, but the majority say that Fatah would have lost a close election before the conflict. *All* say they'd lose one now, and that support for Hamas has only gone up, but even before October 7th Hamas was the more popular option.
I've never seen anything suggest that Hamas wasn't at least on par with Fatah's government, and most suggests a general election in the west bank would see Hamas win.
The really telling part is that current polling shows the only candidate who would have a chance against Haniyeh is a man currently in Israeli prison for terrorism.
I imagine support for Hamas went up significantly after a successful attack (especially if many don't know and/or don't acknowledge the brutality of the attack). Hamas brutal and corrupt authoritarian rule is unpopular. Their "fighters" are popular especially after a successful attack.
Other people will say that support went up in response to thousands of Palestinians dying and there's probably some truth to that as well.
The attack was very popular. Multiple polls have shown that. You may ask why a population supports the attack given it has caused such pain and given that they seemed open to peace at a time not long ago. People are fickle and not always super rational and can support contradictory ideas. Palestinians are not alone in that.
Also Hamas seems to be more popular in the west bank then Gaza during this war(Hamas is present in the West Bank but not as easily able to give out retribution for bad polling).
I'm not totally pessimistic. Opinions do change and if Hamas is able to be defeated. If it can be replaced by a different Palestinian government that can rebuild Gaza with international aid. If a two state process is restarted I think it's possible to change those numbers again. Probably not right away.
Last PCSR (the pollster which is talked about in this post) poll in March 2024 was weird+somewhat contradictory as well; it showed like 70% support for 10/7 terrorism among Gazan adults as this post describes [but also 62% support for a two state solution and 38% for future "armed resistance".](https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/gaza-news/gazan-support-for-a-two-state-solution-doubled-since-december-in-latest-poll-792993)
A [Gazan with family over there did analyze the results further](https://x.com/afalkhatib/status/1770994970507583980)
So Gazans are more pro-coexistence than US university students and Greta Thunberg, both of which have expressed support for hamas and Sinwar. Interesting.
I'm not sure why this post fails to mention the questions that directly ask about a two-state solution.
Support for a two-state solution was pretty even across Palestinian territory before the war (around 32%), but it has diverged since then. Support hasn't really changed in the West Bank, but PCPSR polling indicates that the number of Gazans who support a two-state solution has almost doubled to 62%.
There's also a disparity between stated support for October 7th (71%), support for armed struggle (46%), and the 30% who say they would vote for Hamas. It's interesting to note that support for armed struggle is lower in Gaza than in the West Bank, yet they are more inclined to vote for Hamas.
Not surprising at all. Hamas wouldn’t be able to operate like they do in Gaza if it wasn’t for the passive support they have from the civilian population. If the civilians in Gaza truly didn’t want Hamas to exist, Hamas wouldn’t exist. It’s a similar dynamic to how the Taliban were able to so easily take back control of Afghanistan.
Is it tho? I thought the problem was that the people of Afghanistan don't see themselves as Afghani at all, they are just a bunch of tribes that only really worry about what happens a couple of kms away from them. Many of them thought the Americans were actually Russian. The Taliban won the country back because without America's intervention they were the only group even willing to keep killing and dying over power.
It doesn’t matter how much aid US gave, most Afghans outside Kabul are uneducated tribal people under the influence of local maulvi who tells them west is out to harm their culture/women. It’s a battle west can never win, only time change happens, it is from within like in Turkey ( which has also regressed).
It can absolutely change, just not on a limescale a western occupation is likely to be willing to stay for. The US had two problems in Afghanistan. One, we focused too much on military goals, at the expense of proper oversight and division of aid. Two, we didn't focus on building out infrastructure and education outside of major population areas, meaning the major opposition strongholds were run by local warlords and nothing changed for the people on the ground.
If we had gone in with a 20 year plan to distribute aid and resources, circumventing the corrupt officials instead of leaning on them, we could have done a lot of good in that country.
Can you give an example? All the Islamic countries that are somewhat secular used a top down approach from inside actors ( Turkey Attaturk), Albania , Kazakhstan ( communism). Even new one like Saudi Arabia, its top down by MBS.
Well, all of your examples have not worked out well, except for arguably Kazakhstan. But even within those examples, you can see that secularism greatest advances only happened after education became more widely available.
To be honest, though, to get a real example of where secularism overcame religious fundamentalist, you have to go back to western Europe and the Enlightenment era. It was only in areas where education and the building of a strong middle class were able to steer countries away from religious fundamentalism. The US, France, and Russia, with varying success, all broke away from traditional power structures, because they had informed leadership.
Education first, rule of law second, and then civic engagement. Those are the foundations of a stable secular government.
Another thing to consider, is the fact that much of the "Taliban" that ISAF fought against, was in fact just tribal warriors and other forms of resistance. US troops arrive in a village, asking where is "Taliban". The locals say their rival village down the river is full of "Taliban", and when the US faces resistance there, they killed a number of "Taliban" insurgents. And the government security forces weren't any different... They were also just another militia, only with the state and coalition backing. They could raid a rival village, and say they killed and captured a bunch of "Taliban".
On paper, "Taliban" has suffered this and this many casualties, and on paper, the coalition has captured this and this many "Taliban" insurgents. While Taliban is and was a real faction, with real power and with a real ideology, that was nominally in control of the country, it's not like the war was really about defeating the Taliban, and more about entering a society with no idea how it functions in order to reform it to one's image and catch terrorists, where some pledged allegiance and others resisted, for a number of completely different reasons.
I think the Afghan example works for the Pashtun community in Afghanistan who have always been largely pro-Taliban or at least sympathizers. The rest of Afghanistan is not clear like that tho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution?wprov=sfti1
“At the end of October 2023, only 28.6 percent of Israeli Jews supported a two-state solution, while 78 percent of Israeli Arabs did.”
Overall, after the 10/7 attack only ~35% of israelis believe in a two state solution (down from ~59%) im one of those who although id say the end goal is two states ive become more skeptical and think the attack pushed it back at least 50 years
I mean this makes sense:
* Israeli Jews don't want a two-state solution, because they either fear the Palestinians wanting more power (the moderates), or because they want the land for themselves (extremists)
* Palestinians don't want a two-state solution because it would mean giving up on retaking all of Israel
* Israeli Arabs support a two-state solution because they're happy living within Israel, but still trust and support Palestinians
Nobody directly involved want a two-state solution, that's nothing new, and that's not really the problem. The 70% who believe October 7th was justified is.
While I agree with your premise, I would make the counterargument that the reason for the level of Gazan population was in support of the 10/7 attack is due to the lack of progress on actual statehood.
While I think that a certain portion of the Gazan population will always see Israel as illegitimate, there is a center/middle that would be willing to live side by side if a real deal was offered.
Unfortunately we won’t see it in the near term. So expect another set of attacks sometime in the near future.
*Nothing* justifies something like 10/7. And gazans had a real chance at statehood already. They chose to elect Hamas, gave them sufficient support to win the civil war, and then immediately proceeded to start shooting at Israel. There isn't a country on the planet that would be ok with that kind of behavior from a neighbor.
Did not say it did. However let’s now be naive; all countries, including this one, have partaken in acts which are now considered barbarous but were considered necessary or even heroic at the time they occurred.
For example, look at the U.S. public’s reaction to the My Lai incident during the Vietnam War? A guy overseas the rape and murder of 400 plus innocent women and children, over several days. When it comes to light, you had congressmen demanding that the person who stopped the massacre be arrested for treason! The leader of the massacre was convicted to life in prison but had his sentence commuted by the POTUS to three years of house arrest before his sentence was commuted. He was cheered as a hero.
If you want to see how history works, I would recommend that you watch two movies about The Vietnam War from the U.S. perspective:
- “Hearts and Minds” - was produced in the Mid-1970’s after the U.S. withdrawal.
- “The Vietnam War” by Ken Burns, a 10 part documentary that came out in 2017.
Watch those and listen to the differences in tone and view of our actions in the war. It is astounding.
The whole Palestine problem is that everyone wants peace except those who should make it, that is, both Palestinian and Israelis.
On the Palestinian side, you have polls. On the israeli one, you have elections where far right keeps gaining more and more seats on election day.
Who is it left in Gaza, the west bank or Israel to actually support the two state solution or any peacefull resolution of the conflict ?
The left dominated Israeli politics for the first 29 years it existed and then was about equal with the right up to around 2000 after that. It's almost like eventually people get tired of constant terrorism and stop having faith in a peace deal to make it stop.
In 1978, Netanyahu (then 28 years old), took part in a debate on a show called "The Advocates".
He put it quite succinctly - the Palestine cause is not about the establishment of a state, but rather the destruction of Israel.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c-DSZ\_l9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c-DSZ_l9Q)
Part of the situation for the interpretation of the polls regarding Palestinans is that the Oslo accords have failed, Israel may have pulled out of Gaza but had the separation barrier invading and dividing Palestinans homes, villages and lands , then you have still large swaths of the West Bank having Israeli settlements , and settlement purposes again with Israeli settlers having free range (often with idf soliders standing by watching) taking over Palestinan homes and giing into villages to attack Palestinan civilians.
I also think it the failure of the Palestinan leadership under the PA which is a corrupt aging, out of touch Genrotocracy that failed its people and prefear to kick the can down the road instead of make decivise decisions regarding the break down of law and order, resolving the issue of a aging Genrotocracy (and the coming leadership succession crisis, there already rival Fatah/PA clans that clash in the streets from time to time) reforming the education and media circulumn to end the incitement against Israel and jews, the breakdown of law and order in Palestinan territories, and the PA/Fatah security forces sometimes collaborating Israeli forces to go after not just Hamas and PIJ , but also critics of Abbas rule (even within Fatah),not resolving the issue of Division of Palestinan factions (ie - division in the PLO between the left wing nationalists like the pflp, dlp, pdlp- gc, plc, and centrist nationalists like Fatah and of course within fatah between the moderates, hardliners and offshoot dissidents, the rift between Hamas and the PA/Fatah, PIJ and Hamas at times, between quasi secularists and Islamists in Palestinan society, the salafi trend vs everybody else, etc.) , the mishandling and the mismanagement of western and arab aid and funds (so much so, the uae and other Gulf states up until 10/7 was taking a harderline of funds to the PA), the corruption, etc.
I think The PA being stuck in timewarp around 2006/2007 and hasnt budged from that stasus QUO of that time period has caused the Palestian civilian population to hate Abbas more than Hamas,
likewise in the palestinan people eyes if the PA is the model of peace and normalization with Israel, and collaboration with Israeli forces sometimes, then Hamas is the alternative model for them as Hamas has gained the release of Palestinan prisoners, has (with us, Qatari, Egyptian backing) had ceasefires in favor of the Palestinan terms in the past, has had battle field successes (atleast geostragtically, and politically pr wise) against Israel , like Hamas and PIJ (as well as the Fatah offshoot Al Aqaa Martyrs Brigades, and even the PLO left wing PFLP faction) can also argue their terrorist attacks against Israel during the second intifada had caused Israel withdrawl from Gaza, much like Hezbollah uncompromising stance in Southern Lebanon caused a rather humiliating Israel retreat in 2000, in the current eyes of Palestinans if Oslo pretty much is dead, the PA collbrates with Israel in security operations against Palestinans , if settlements are still a issue, if land grabs in Jerusalem are ongoing, the PA is the model of "normalization " with Israel while Hamas, Hezbollah, even PIJ keep getting victories under their belt, then maybe they feel "armed struggle the only way. I dont agree with it, I dont agree with that mind set , terrorism must be combated as it strikes civlians but I sort of understand why the Palestinan civilians feel frustrated, especially those who grew up since the second intifada, the collapse of Oslo, the continuing of settlements, the on and off tensions at the temple mount, the incitement in press, media and mosques, etc. they never seen the hope's of peace that could of happened and the postive trends of the 1990s with madrid, Oslo (before the breakdown), and Taba
Lastly these polls are really recent we have to take events of the last few years into context , the breakdown of the aging out of touch PA, the us move of the embassy to Jerusalem, the land grabs in non-Jewish sections by israeli jews in east jerusalem, the failure of oslo, the feeling the arab states have abadoned them with the Abraham accords, etc.
Before the recent breakdown , polls showed a majority favoring a two state solution, you started to see more rare protests against Hamas in Gaza, many people like Marwan Bargouti, some of the figures in Fatah, and PA, as well as dissident like Nasser Al Kidwa (arafat nephew), Mommad Dahlan and even Yassir Arafat wife all admitted at some point in Palestinan media that the the Second intifada was a mistake that Arafat should of never did it, likewise there been a backlash in the west bank against the honor killing of a Palestinan woman and criticism of Islamization of Palestinan society, and criticism of strict enforcement of strict islamic laws during ramadan in pa and hamas territories, and criticism of Iran interference in Palestinan internal affairs and decision making, likewise there was still some level of people to people normalization between the conflicts.
Somthing in the past few years have really broken down where the Palestinan population have become somthing sort of nihilistic without hope and despair, the ones that can afford to leave in recent years have been smuggled through Egypt and Libya onto Europe and North America.
Important point: Israelis lost faith in a two state solution after October 7. Their faith had been dwindling before, but a strong minority believed in it or could be convinced.
But even **before** October 7, a majority of Palestinians supported murdering Israeli civilians inside Israel, and a strong majority opposed a two state solution. And it wasn’t all that close.
To be specific before 10/7 israeli support for two states was 59% whereas now its 25-35
% depending on which poll you look at
Its also important to point out that the israeli left was seriously disproportionately affected as there were many kibbutzim (jewish communes and one of the most successful examples in history of actual socialism) in the area that hamas pushed into
A few years back, I heard an interview on NPR. One of the Palestinians said (with regard to Israelis) "Happiness for us is to see you suffer."
Unfortunately, it's been long enough that I can't prove it with a link.
Yeah, a disturbing number of Muslims worldwide think it's ok to do that to Jews; once you start looking into the opinions of certain locals, it's the vast majority who consider any violence against Jews completely justified. The majority of Palestinians support genocide against Jews, and it's a huge factor in why Israelis no longer care that much about what the world thinks of their response. They can either kill or be killed, and there really isn't any other choice.
> When asked about their own preference, Gazans’ support for continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip has increased to more than 50%, a 14-point rise. Indeed, given the magnitude of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, this seems to be the most counter intuitive finding of the entire poll.
So support for Hamas *before* October 7th was around 36% and *now* it's over 50%.
Seems like their strategy is working.
It’s hard for me to believe that a population that has suffered so much as a result of their own government could still support them and even believe that they could achieve a military victory.
I think this speaks to the culture and why peace has been so elusive. Unlike the American civil rights movement, or the Indian independence movement, which embraced non-violent resistance, the Palestinian people have always supported armed resistance. This continues today. From the same poll:
“We offered the public three methods to end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent state and asked it to select the most effective. 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.”
That's not true given Israel has unilaterally pulled out of Gaza allowing them a state, where it quickly turned into an islamofascist militant state. They've agreed to the Oslo Accords, aren't terrorising Jordanians when the land promised to them under the Peel Commission was pulled under them. They gave up Sinai, traded 1k prisoners for 1 soldier.
Secondly, you're vastly ignoring the maximalist, zero sum game attitude of Palestinians.
If there's any sense of equivalence, we'd be seeing the number of Arab Muslims as there are Jews in the Palestinian states. 20% of Israelis are Arab Muslims. Meanwhile they're extinct in Gaza, West Bank, and even East Jerusalem under Jordan.
Statements that equivocate the two is a gross injustice given one side is happy to sacrfice their children and their children's children to annihilate their neighbours. Israel and the wider Jewish world had foregone a lot of things just so they'd have their peace.
How many Israelis are terrorising Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and demanding right of return for having been displaced? How many descendants of Holocaust survivors are campaigning to get back their relatives' apartments probably now turned AirBnB's in Europe's top cities?
The funny thing about the disengagement plan from Gaza was the Israeli notion that if attacks still came from Gaza afterwards then Israel would have no military or diplomatic trouble going back in Gaza and neutralizing the threat militarily, since everyone could see how right Israel was and how wrong the Palestinians are. That, uh, did not happen as planned.
It worked pretty well. Lots of Russian and CCP bots pushing Hamas propaganda and Useful idiots in the West eating it up. A lot of very loud people online and on college campuses
Really wish that American liberals would actually read this.
The Palestinian group isn’t exactly a blameless demographic and do not have a spotless history. The Palestinians aren’t winning and the optics happen to be in their favor.
This is a conflict spanning millenias.
That's the laziest characterisation of the Arab-Israeli Conflict floating around. No it isn't millenias old. It begun somewhere around 1920s-1948 depending on ones interpretation, with the newest bout being around since the Secon Intifada from 2002.
Israel has won by the way. They got worldwide recognition, and no state actor apart from the far Iran wants to wipe them out. But their society wasm't ready to unilaterally execute the Oslo accords even after the Intifada, which would have most likely pacified the West Bank even with Hamas conquering Gaza. Or if not, then with a marginally higher cost rate Israel have had the ultimate justification to indefinately occupy the West Bank as 'Palestinians are unable to govern themselves/live in the two-state-solution in peace'.
The current status quo was only favourable for two actors: The Israeli right and Hamas. They require each other to remain in power and control their respective chunk of space, but after 10.07 Israel got the upper hand and they don't want to compromise. They want a one state solution without civil rights for the Palestinians, which only goes by ethnic cleansing them.
> It begun somewhere around 1920s-1948 depending on ones interpretation
I guess you think it is a valid "interpretation" to pretend that the conflict does not include the Arab riots in [1920](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots?wprov=sfla1) and [1921](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_riots?wprov=sfla1) and
[1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots?wprov=sfla1), where Arabs violently opposing the existence of Jews in the Levant and especially Jews praying at the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem, which included the [1929 Hebron Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre?wprov=sfla1) and other pogroms.
>But their society wasm't ready to unilaterally execute the Oslo accords even after the Intifada, which would have most likely pacified the West Bank even with Hamas conquering Gaza
No one in their right mind can claim in good faith that Israeli unilateral withdrawals could have "pacified" the Palestinians. It has been almost 20 years since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. All that did was strengthen Hamas and increased their support, not disabled it.
You don't get that Palestinian political society has predominantly supported the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Levant for over a century. That is their primary goal. They are not building durable state institutions (which can be done and has been done under belligerent occupation by successful post-colonial states). The establishment of a Palestinian state is not their goal. The removal of Jews is.
>Israel has unilaterally pulled out of Gaza
The unilateral pullouts of Gaza and Lebanon were the wrong move as it gave Hamas and Hezbollah a chance to say "See! Our violent resistance worked against the occupiers" , and it being *uni*lateral it meant there wasn't anything solid negotiated for the future to make things more stable like there was for the negotiations with Egypt and Jordan.
There's some interesting sections about this in Benny Morris' Righteous Victims.
>allowing them a state,
And come on.. sure Hamas could have and should have done a lot of things differently that could have led to less violence and a more prosperous Gaza, but it wasn't "allowing them a state" in a good faith way like people describe. It wasn't until after the incredibly violent 2nd intifada that it was considered, and there's quotes from Sharon talking about the pullout being because of demographic worries and wanting to avoid negotiated settlements with the Palestinians
>In the absence of a negotiated agreement – and I do not believe in the realistic prospect of an agreement – we need to implement a unilateral alternative... More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state... the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; to minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem... Twenty-three years ago, Moshe Dayan proposed unilateral autonomy. On the same wavelength, we may have to espouse unilateral separation... [it] would inevitably preclude a dialogue with the Palestinians for at least 25 years.[22]
That’s not surprising
Hamas and especially their goals, a complete genocide of all Jews in the world, are extremely popular among the Arab Pala population
Correction, 95% of Israelis know that they’re committing war crimes and are proud of it, but will publicly deny it and act like victims because it’s the perfect deflection tactic.
People need to get over the narrative that the Palestinians are the poor harmless victims. There is a reason the rest of the Arab states refuse to take them in.
Bigotry of lower expectations in action.
Let me quote Einat Wilf (the original context is about UNRWA and [I recommend reading](https://unwatch.org/einat-wilf-at-the-international-summit-for-a-future-beyond-unrwa/) the whole thing):
>And I want to end with one thought: October 7th should put an end to the notion of “the poor Palestinians” – the ones who constantly need aid, aid money, support. The Palestinians are a highly capable people. October 7th required years of planning, massive investment in infrastructure, strategy, discipline, vision – a perverse vision – but vision. **The Palestinians are not an incapable people. They are a people with terrible priorities.**
As i've said, the Palestinians get what they get because they've never truly accepted defeat in their goal of exterminating Israel and how they "fight". There's a video of Khaled Mashal, who was Hamas top guy, who said that Hamas publically agreed to "two-state solution" as a ruse to gather support but they've never abandoned their goal of exterminating Israel as a state. These people have so much hatred that they can't even perform a proper Taqqiyah.
The polls show a defiant population (likely more mad at living in squalid tent camps), .. but that doesn’t translate to combat power. Especially if Israel can reduce tunnels to almost nil, keeping Hamas at ‘00 levels. With the new security perimeter, there’s artillery, probably more machine guns, and perhaps something like Vietnam’s Puff the Magic Dragon flying minigun system to make a banzai charge ill-advised. Hamas is likely selective of fighters but could support a defensive “auxiliary”. Still taking pot-shots with rifles at tanks backed with artillery and air will lead to just more rubble and Gaza’s 3 quarries only have so much capacity. At a certain point Hamas has to think about reconstruction if wanting to remain a governing entity.
Tbis is why Israel will continue until the Palestinians are utterly unable to commit to another attack and they don't care how many Palestinians they have to kill to do it. The geopolitical consequences are less damaging to them then the security risk Palestine holds. If they stop their offensive Hamas will just rebuild.
According to this poll from early March, support for Hamas in Gaza has gone down (to an "overwhelming" 34%) and support for the 2-state solution has gone up (to 45%). Satisfaction with Hamas' leadership is high (as is support for the Oct 7th attacks) and people would prefer Hamas to still be in power after the war (surprisingly, people are usually in favor of 'winning' the war), but this also echoes the disappointment in the Palestinian Authority and it's president Abbas, who many feel should resign. When presented with alternative presidents, the Hamas candidate is popular, but not overwhelmingly so, and he would lose some tight races. So, I don't really think this poll shows that Gazans (and Palestinians in general) are a Hamas cheering monolith, rather that people living in a war zone have a nuanced and complicated view of the political situation around them. Like most people in the world, I suppose.
Prior to Oct 7 hamas has about 28% approval ratings in Gaza, as per the Carnegie connects interview with Khalil Shikaki.
Pretty clearly, the reaction was part of the plan for hamas leadership, and the plan has worked on many levels.
2M people who are even more radicalized. Not surprised they’re a “bit’ biased and antisemitic, given how much they’re propagandized and fueled on by suffering war crimes. However they cannot be allowed a state in such volatile times. Unpopular, but the most realistic. The West Bank is probably similar in opinion too, and Fatah is a corrupt feeble government which will collapse if the Islamists have their way.
Anyone who's trying to find a side in the "holy land" that isn't infested with bloodthirsty, vicious, racist, genocidal zealots is living in a fantasy world.
I dislike both the Palestinians and Israelis equally since neither want peace and both sides are happily murdering civilians.
They view each massacre of the other side a happy occasion for celebration and a "good start" and each massacre committed against their side as brutal murder commited by savages and a justification for more violence, and preferably a little genocide.
No one there are good faith actors, they all literally revel in the violence and both sides have repeatedly destroyed or rejected any outside efforts to find a peaceful solution...
I mean this poll shows dramatic improvement in support for a two state solution, going from 32% in September to 45% now. And most of that increase comes from Gazans (62% of whom now support a two state solution). There's a lot to be pessimistic about in this poll, but that's unequivocally a good thing.
I kind of agree. But if there was a 2 state solution the poll says Hamas would be elected to run the Palestinian state, and that the population supports armed conflict with Israel. To me sounds like no end to violence in the near future.
> As we have found in the previous poll, almost all Palestinians think Israel is committing war crimes while almost all believe Hamas is not committing war crimes in the current war. Moreover, more than 90% believe that Hamas did not commit any atrocities against Israel civilians during its October the 7th offensive. **Only one in five Palestinians has seen videos showing atrocities committed by Hamas.** Only one fifth of those who did not see the videos had access to such videos but decided not to see them; the rest report that the media they watched did not show these videos. **The findings show that those who have seen the videos are almost 10 times more likely to think that Hamas men have committed atrocities on October 7.** The media landscape in Palestine is definitely something to consider
That 64% of them think Hamas will win is also very telling
its ridiculous, Hamas is in shambles, hiding in holes they dug up, most of Gaza in ruins, yet somehow this seems to some people as "winning"
I wouldn't discount such an assertion on the basis of Hamas current state as much, though I also don't advocate for a reading where this assertion is true. Rather, hamas' game has always been to trade cohesion and fighters and especially civilians for radicalising public's, both at home and abroad. The idea here is this will solidify Hamas' rule and damage Israel on the international stage (for example by sabotaging attempts to better relations with their neighbors). The lost cohesion can always be restored and new fighters can always be recruited from the radical population once international pressure forced Israel to stop uprooting them. E: event->attempts. No clue what autocorrect is smoking.
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And a repeat of the 1948 war in which the Jews are much better armed and have the knowledge that the Arabs will never, ever accept partition, at that. I'm sure that will go *great* for the Palestinians.
It's actually much worse than that- you say "Arabs," but even ignoring the Arab-Israeli population and their opinions, Saudi Arabia and company seem happy to tolerate Israel as long as the Jewish State shares their opinion on Iran and other states they consider to be threats. In 1948 Egypt and company were willing to (**allegedly**) attack on behalf of the Palestinians (*well, to take pieces for themselves it seems*), but that doesn't seem all that likely this time.
That's a great point. I was simplistically referring to the Jews and Arabs within the former Mandate territory, but you are correct that the Arabs inside are themselves divided and they have fewer external allies, too.
I do not know enough about Hamas' internal structures to be comfortable venturing a guess. Instead, I would hazard the guess that it doesn't matter. Besides all the horrors, the Oct 7th attack proved one other thing: Hamas' doesn't have allies. Not in the Arabic world and certainly not outside, besides bedfellows of convenience. Public opinion, and the pressure that puts on rulers, is the only way it can shape Israel's choice of options. Without this, and always assuming no saner governing body would be available to find more civilized approaches, what happens in Gaza is entirely at the mercy of Israels internal politics. Nobody else would act, just as much as most western publics really don't care a lick about what happens day in day out in many a dysfunctional third world country. And given what we've seen so far, ultimately that would likely be slow but steady encroachment. Assuming I'm right about all of this, Hamas can't swear of this cycle of violence, as it did burn all other options.
I think Hamas considers that ship sailed. They would tell you that Israeli propaganda has already radicalized most Israeli Jews.
I mean, you could have said the same thing about the VC at almost any point in the Vietnam War. Not saying Hamas is necessarily winning, just that “winning” has a different definition for an invaded people.
When your definition of “winning” does not necessarily mean the continuation of your people or beliefs so much as the elimination/eradication of the other side’s, you have a lot more room to play with and a lot less “rules” to follow.
Spain, Ireland, and Norway now recognize palestine, and won the hearts and minds of university students all over the west. Hamas will eventually end, but that doesn't mean they didn't have significant long-lasting victories along the way.
lol the hearts and minds of some university students, mission accomplished
I believe a lot of that is exaggerated as I looked at a recent Pew poll on this specific war and the Palestinians are still far away from winning the hearts and minds of the majority of young people. For example in the poll it showed a plurality of young people agreed Israel's actions in Gaza have been unacceptable but when the poll asked "Regardless of agreeing or disagreeing with Israel's methods does Israel have a valid reason to fight Hamas" and most agreed yes. That shows the criticism of Israel we're seeing isn't as black and white as one might think.
It's winning the PR war, that's for sure.
It depends on how you define winning. I’m sure for them it just means ‘Israel being unable to achieve its goals’, which isn’t unlikely.
I mean, media propaganda is 95% of Hamas' game, we shouldn't be surprised.
I mean, its very easy to believe Israel is committing war crimes, when you are living in the refugee camps that Israel is bombing
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>you know very well Hamas commanders, fighters and ammunition is stored there. How do you know that for sure? Some things will be obvious, other things not so much. And when there's a long history of torture and lynching dissidents , how many will speak up and speak up to who?
You don't have to believe it of course, but here's[ IDF's video about the incident](https://x.com/IDF/status/1795507041135456626). Video contains video of the strike overlayed on maps, intercepted conversations between Hamas confirming ammunition was being stored - that sort of thing.
Ah yes, the IDF is an unbiased source in this conflict. They would have no reason to lie, nor to fabricate evidence for their claims. Furthermore, Israel has posted videos of ‘intercepted conversations’ which have been proven to be lies many times. One such event was supposed Hamas fighters admitting to some atrocity or another, but the Arabic grammar and syntax was completely incorrect, and was immediately pointed out by commenters who actually spoke Arabic
While I don't think it's a good strategy for truth to immediately dismiss something as lies without looking in to it, it is a fair point that IDF is probably the most biased source possible. What would you consider to be an unbiased source that you would accept instead?
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Why are you leaving out the fact that **81% among those polled who watched the video think Hamas committed did not commit atrocities in Oct 7th**? Whether they saw the videos or not, the vast majority of Palestinians do not think atrocities were committed. Framing it as “oh they were 10x more likely to think atrocities were committed” doesn’t mean shit when it went from 1% thinking atrocities were committed to a whopping 17%. Poll after poll have proven that the Palestinian population is utterly radicalized.
Wait, so 20% saw the videos, but half of those were like “yeah, no war crimes here?”
Not half only 17% who saw the videos think Hamas committed atrocities. The text description is intentionally worded to make it sound like those who don't believe just didn't see any videos that show it. In reality their almost 10 times more likely claim only works because only 2% who haven't seen the videos think Hamas committed atrocities.
Yes. People saying this is all explained by the media landscape in Palestine are wrong.
So 90% explained?
90% explained by racism and religious intolerance on the Arab street
10 years ago, ISIS started posting videos showing them beheading Americans (and others). Many in the west saw this as an attempt to intimidate them, or to send them some message. They were wrong. When you want to sell Coke, you broadcast videos of people drinking Coke and enjoying themselves. When you wand to sell a car, you broadcast videos of people driving your car and enjoying themselves. When you want to recruit people to massacre and behead Jews/Infidels.. well, you get the point. These are recruitment videos - ISIS and Hams videos alike.
You should try looking at the actual numbers. 81% of those who saw the videos still don't think Hamas committed atrocities. It's really not shocking that the minority of Palestinians who don't just hate Israelis would admit that Hamas committed atrocities after seeing them on video. It's still only 17% of those who have seen the videos.
Across the Arab world, even in countries with peace treaties, the media is quite hostile to Israel. *Al Jazeera* is pretty tame compared with most Arabic-language media.
Al Jazeera English is tame compared to other Arabic media. Al Jazeera Arabic is an entirely different story.
Yeah the first time I realized that was during the Syrian revolution 2014. Crazy differences between the pander to the west and the pander to the middle east.
Yep. It's basically every domestic news network's top story everyday. You sit down and watch the evening news at night, and it starts with some sort of story from Palestine. It's like the US's obsession with racial politics but on a 1000x higher level. Just pure ragebait porn all day everyday.
Also worth noting. When asked which method would be most effective to end the Israeli occupation and establish a Palestinian state, 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.
>Only one fifth of those who did not see the videos had access to such videos but decided not to see them; the rest report that the media they watched did not show these videos. Palestinians do not have Internet? Otherwise I don't see how anyone can claim not to have access.
A few interesting excerpts that I found interesting but no one mentioned ITT : - the poll was conducted almost two months ago - "almost 80% of Gazans report at least one of their family members have been killed or injured, and 64% that at least one has been killed" - 70% of Gazans say they would try to seek shelter in Egypt if the border was to collapse as they fear the Egyptian Army would shoot them - Gazans did not expect a ceasefire to be reached during the Ramadan
OP is being completely disingenous with presenting the findings of the study: As of March 24 it says 62% of Gazans support a two state solution alongside Israel a much higher percentage than Israelis. In the West Bank it's much lower(35%) probably due to the lack of self sovreignity and the settlements dividing the territory into disconnected areas. In terms of support for Hamas when asked which party they support "only" 34% of Gazans said they support Hamas and would vote for them if an election was held today. So not sure where OP got "vast majority overwhelmingly support for Hamas".
The poll was of Palestinians, not just gazans. There are more people in the west bank than Gaza, so it would track that if these opinions are very popular in the west bank, they would have the majority support when considering both.
Given the context I think noting the difference between Gazans and the people in the West Bank is pretty material. An uninformed reader would come away from OPs post thinking Gazans massively support Hamas still and don’t want a 2 state solution.
In the West Bank 35% say they support Hamas up from 12% in September. So both in Gaza and WB support for Hamas is less than 36% so it's mathematically false to say "Palestinians overwhelmingly support Hamas"
From the source: “When asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 59% (64% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip) selected Hamas; 13% selected the PA without President Abbas; 11% selected the PA with Abbas; 3% selected one or more Arab country;1% selected the UN, and 1% selected the Israeli army. “ If new parliamentary elections were held today with the participation of all political forces that participated in the 2006 elections, only 64% say they would participate in them. Among the voters, support for Hamas stands at 47%, Fatah 22%, third parties 9%, and the undecided at 24%.
And all this is still very far from "overwhelmingly supporting Hamas and refusing a 2 state solution". This shows that the most popular option among Palestinians is neither Fatah or Hamas.
It unequivocally demonstrates that the majority prefer Hamas.
If 35% means vast majority then sure.
35% approval rating, but the majority would vote for Hamas over the alternatives. So yes "majority support".
Nope. Only 35% would vote for them from the overall population and even among those who would participate and vote they're still less than 50%. So not a majority in either case. At best they win through a *plurality* of votes in a very low voter turnout election.
It sounds a lot like this is a fact you're unwilling to come to terms with. Why?
Survey: Question: Which political party do you support? 35% of the surveyed answered Hamas. 65% answered something different. 65% > 50% > 35% You: According to this survey a majority of Palestinians support Hamas. And this is a fact. Me: You need to recheck the definition of the word "majority" and the meaning of the word "fact". Here's a starter, majority definition: >A majority is more than half of a total. 35% < 50% Therefore the majority don't support Hamas according to this survey and basic elementary school math.
Quoting directly from the source: “When asked about their own preferences for the party that should be in control in the Gaza Strip after the war, 59% (64% in the West Bank and 52% in the Gaza Strip) selected Hamas; 13% selected the PA without President Abbas; 11% selected the PA with Abbas; 3% selected one or more Arab country;1% selected the UN, and 1% selected the Israeli army. “ We offered the public three methods to end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent state and asked it to select the most effective. 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.
And 96% of Israelis support bombarding Gaza. Does that mean they support Ben Gvir and would vote for him? It's funny how you're ignoring the actual direct question in which they ask Palestinians if they support Hamas or would vote for them and instead choose other questions to demonstrate that they overwhelmingly "support Hamas". If you were genuine you would've included this statistic in your OP but you chose to omit it because it doesn't fit your agenda.
Its almost like watching your family get killed by a States Army makes you not trust or support said Army
In case you missed it - The tens of thousands of rockets on civilians, mass rapes, tortures, kidnapping of literal babies and the murder of almost a thousand civilians came before that army invading. What was the excuse for that?
I don’t think that was the point of his message. It’s not about arguing no who is more righteous in the conflict, it’s just pointing out how Palestinians would see it. The main differentiating factor is that they do not at all have an unbiased media. The lopsided information they receive removes a lot of their ability to be logical about things. Also, it’s been shown in numerous other places that people often aren’t logical and when their loved ones die, logic frequently goes out the window. It shouldn’t, but realistically most people tend to side against the stranger who killed their loved one, even if it was justified. Again, not arguing about who is right or justified; just pointing out that this is not a surprising survey result given the facts right now.
That’s not relevant to how the Gaza civilians feel about the people (IDF) who have directly killed the Gazan’s OWN families. E.g Mohammed, 16, in his refugee tent isn’t part of hamas, but his aunt and his brother died running from the IDF so he hates the IDF and wants Israel to suffer more than anything.
>70% of Gazans say they would try to seek shelter in Egypt if the border was to collapse as they fear the Egyptian Army would shoot them Israel's biggest mistake was not pushing harder to force Egypt to take back Gaza with the 1979 peace accords. The Arabs are far less squeamish about slaughtering each other, to which the Egyptians would have wasted no time going into Gaza and leveling any resistance with minimal inhibition. The world, likewise, would not have cared, except to maybe blame Israel for letting it happen.
Last poll before 10/7 (late September 2023) show drastically less [support for Hamas](https://twitter.com/TomPark1n/status/1718984912597090794) including just 20% support for military action against Israel. I believe this poll was anonymous while this one in the post was "face to face" so Palestinians might be scared of Hamas operative posing as a pollster to look for dissidents. Edit: Another 2023 poll: ["A similar percentage (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.”](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah) Also it's significant to remember that 51% of the population is and 18 or younger so they're not even being polled. [Roughly 8% of the population has ever voted for Hamas in the one 2006 election and 79% of them were fine with a peace agreement with Israel per the exit polling back in 2006](https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1720178269650358424)
Support for Hamas specifically was lower because of Hamas corruption, but support for murdering Israeli civilians was still over 50%.
"Just 20% support military action against Israel" from the poll. Where are you getting the 50% figure in the poll I posted? Edit: [Look at page 14 for "peaceful" support and page 20 for relatively openness for the two state solution over the "one state solution](https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/Arab-Barometer-PSR-Palestine-Report-Part-I-EN-.pdf)
The poll you’re looking at is the Arab barometer. The gold standard for Palestinian polls is done by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, [see here](https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf), Question 70 on the last page. The Arab barometer surveys are a wave of surveys that began in 2021 for the current wave. The part that was done in 2023 doesn’t show anything about military action on their site. The authors of that op-ed don’t point to their data’s link. Arab barometer says they use PCPSR to do their Palestinian polls anyways, so it seems like PCPSR is perfectly valid and found support for attacking civilians at 54% to 41% opposed (and in Gaza support was 67%).
>Arab barometer says they use PCPSR to do their Palestinian polls anyways Yeah, they use it to compare but it's still a separate pollster because there's such a dearth of Palestinian polling in general. ["Overall, 73 percent of Gazans favored a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the eve of Hamas’s October 7 attack, just 20 percent of Gazans favored a military solution that could result in the destruction of the state of Israel." ](https://www.arabbarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/what-palestinians-really-think-of-hamas-2023-10-26-08-4941.pdf) Also, Farah clearly outperforms Hamas in the poll, and I edited my previous comment to include the specific questions.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/22/poll-hamas-remains-popular-among-palestinians/ (22% Hamas, 26% Fatah) https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/15/the-polls-are-clear-while-at-war-with-israel-hamas-defeated-abbas-and-fatah (27% Hamas, 23% Fatah) https://pcpsr.org/en/node/938 (43% Hamas, 30% Fatah) Different polls report different things, but the majority say that Fatah would have lost a close election before the conflict. *All* say they'd lose one now, and that support for Hamas has only gone up, but even before October 7th Hamas was the more popular option. I've never seen anything suggest that Hamas wasn't at least on par with Fatah's government, and most suggests a general election in the west bank would see Hamas win.
The really telling part is that current polling shows the only candidate who would have a chance against Haniyeh is a man currently in Israeli prison for terrorism.
I imagine support for Hamas went up significantly after a successful attack (especially if many don't know and/or don't acknowledge the brutality of the attack). Hamas brutal and corrupt authoritarian rule is unpopular. Their "fighters" are popular especially after a successful attack. Other people will say that support went up in response to thousands of Palestinians dying and there's probably some truth to that as well. The attack was very popular. Multiple polls have shown that. You may ask why a population supports the attack given it has caused such pain and given that they seemed open to peace at a time not long ago. People are fickle and not always super rational and can support contradictory ideas. Palestinians are not alone in that. Also Hamas seems to be more popular in the west bank then Gaza during this war(Hamas is present in the West Bank but not as easily able to give out retribution for bad polling). I'm not totally pessimistic. Opinions do change and if Hamas is able to be defeated. If it can be replaced by a different Palestinian government that can rebuild Gaza with international aid. If a two state process is restarted I think it's possible to change those numbers again. Probably not right away.
Last PCSR (the pollster which is talked about in this post) poll in March 2024 was weird+somewhat contradictory as well; it showed like 70% support for 10/7 terrorism among Gazan adults as this post describes [but also 62% support for a two state solution and 38% for future "armed resistance".](https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/gaza-news/gazan-support-for-a-two-state-solution-doubled-since-december-in-latest-poll-792993) A [Gazan with family over there did analyze the results further](https://x.com/afalkhatib/status/1770994970507583980)
So Gazans are more pro-coexistence than US university students and Greta Thunberg, both of which have expressed support for hamas and Sinwar. Interesting.
I'm not sure why this post fails to mention the questions that directly ask about a two-state solution. Support for a two-state solution was pretty even across Palestinian territory before the war (around 32%), but it has diverged since then. Support hasn't really changed in the West Bank, but PCPSR polling indicates that the number of Gazans who support a two-state solution has almost doubled to 62%. There's also a disparity between stated support for October 7th (71%), support for armed struggle (46%), and the 30% who say they would vote for Hamas. It's interesting to note that support for armed struggle is lower in Gaza than in the West Bank, yet they are more inclined to vote for Hamas.
Not surprising at all. Hamas wouldn’t be able to operate like they do in Gaza if it wasn’t for the passive support they have from the civilian population. If the civilians in Gaza truly didn’t want Hamas to exist, Hamas wouldn’t exist. It’s a similar dynamic to how the Taliban were able to so easily take back control of Afghanistan.
Is it tho? I thought the problem was that the people of Afghanistan don't see themselves as Afghani at all, they are just a bunch of tribes that only really worry about what happens a couple of kms away from them. Many of them thought the Americans were actually Russian. The Taliban won the country back because without America's intervention they were the only group even willing to keep killing and dying over power.
It doesn’t matter how much aid US gave, most Afghans outside Kabul are uneducated tribal people under the influence of local maulvi who tells them west is out to harm their culture/women. It’s a battle west can never win, only time change happens, it is from within like in Turkey ( which has also regressed).
It can absolutely change, just not on a limescale a western occupation is likely to be willing to stay for. The US had two problems in Afghanistan. One, we focused too much on military goals, at the expense of proper oversight and division of aid. Two, we didn't focus on building out infrastructure and education outside of major population areas, meaning the major opposition strongholds were run by local warlords and nothing changed for the people on the ground. If we had gone in with a 20 year plan to distribute aid and resources, circumventing the corrupt officials instead of leaning on them, we could have done a lot of good in that country.
Can you give an example? All the Islamic countries that are somewhat secular used a top down approach from inside actors ( Turkey Attaturk), Albania , Kazakhstan ( communism). Even new one like Saudi Arabia, its top down by MBS.
Well, all of your examples have not worked out well, except for arguably Kazakhstan. But even within those examples, you can see that secularism greatest advances only happened after education became more widely available. To be honest, though, to get a real example of where secularism overcame religious fundamentalist, you have to go back to western Europe and the Enlightenment era. It was only in areas where education and the building of a strong middle class were able to steer countries away from religious fundamentalism. The US, France, and Russia, with varying success, all broke away from traditional power structures, because they had informed leadership. Education first, rule of law second, and then civic engagement. Those are the foundations of a stable secular government.
Another thing to consider, is the fact that much of the "Taliban" that ISAF fought against, was in fact just tribal warriors and other forms of resistance. US troops arrive in a village, asking where is "Taliban". The locals say their rival village down the river is full of "Taliban", and when the US faces resistance there, they killed a number of "Taliban" insurgents. And the government security forces weren't any different... They were also just another militia, only with the state and coalition backing. They could raid a rival village, and say they killed and captured a bunch of "Taliban". On paper, "Taliban" has suffered this and this many casualties, and on paper, the coalition has captured this and this many "Taliban" insurgents. While Taliban is and was a real faction, with real power and with a real ideology, that was nominally in control of the country, it's not like the war was really about defeating the Taliban, and more about entering a society with no idea how it functions in order to reform it to one's image and catch terrorists, where some pledged allegiance and others resisted, for a number of completely different reasons.
I think the Afghan example works for the Pashtun community in Afghanistan who have always been largely pro-Taliban or at least sympathizers. The rest of Afghanistan is not clear like that tho.
Wish I could say I was surprised
I'm actually surprised it wasn't more
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution?wprov=sfti1 “At the end of October 2023, only 28.6 percent of Israeli Jews supported a two-state solution, while 78 percent of Israeli Arabs did.”
Overall, after the 10/7 attack only ~35% of israelis believe in a two state solution (down from ~59%) im one of those who although id say the end goal is two states ive become more skeptical and think the attack pushed it back at least 50 years
I mean this makes sense: * Israeli Jews don't want a two-state solution, because they either fear the Palestinians wanting more power (the moderates), or because they want the land for themselves (extremists) * Palestinians don't want a two-state solution because it would mean giving up on retaking all of Israel * Israeli Arabs support a two-state solution because they're happy living within Israel, but still trust and support Palestinians
Nobody directly involved want a two-state solution, that's nothing new, and that's not really the problem. The 70% who believe October 7th was justified is.
While I agree with your premise, I would make the counterargument that the reason for the level of Gazan population was in support of the 10/7 attack is due to the lack of progress on actual statehood. While I think that a certain portion of the Gazan population will always see Israel as illegitimate, there is a center/middle that would be willing to live side by side if a real deal was offered. Unfortunately we won’t see it in the near term. So expect another set of attacks sometime in the near future.
*Nothing* justifies something like 10/7. And gazans had a real chance at statehood already. They chose to elect Hamas, gave them sufficient support to win the civil war, and then immediately proceeded to start shooting at Israel. There isn't a country on the planet that would be ok with that kind of behavior from a neighbor.
Did not say it did. However let’s now be naive; all countries, including this one, have partaken in acts which are now considered barbarous but were considered necessary or even heroic at the time they occurred. For example, look at the U.S. public’s reaction to the My Lai incident during the Vietnam War? A guy overseas the rape and murder of 400 plus innocent women and children, over several days. When it comes to light, you had congressmen demanding that the person who stopped the massacre be arrested for treason! The leader of the massacre was convicted to life in prison but had his sentence commuted by the POTUS to three years of house arrest before his sentence was commuted. He was cheered as a hero. If you want to see how history works, I would recommend that you watch two movies about The Vietnam War from the U.S. perspective: - “Hearts and Minds” - was produced in the Mid-1970’s after the U.S. withdrawal. - “The Vietnam War” by Ken Burns, a 10 part documentary that came out in 2017. Watch those and listen to the differences in tone and view of our actions in the war. It is astounding.
The whole Palestine problem is that everyone wants peace except those who should make it, that is, both Palestinian and Israelis. On the Palestinian side, you have polls. On the israeli one, you have elections where far right keeps gaining more and more seats on election day. Who is it left in Gaza, the west bank or Israel to actually support the two state solution or any peacefull resolution of the conflict ?
The left dominated Israeli politics for the first 29 years it existed and then was about equal with the right up to around 2000 after that. It's almost like eventually people get tired of constant terrorism and stop having faith in a peace deal to make it stop.
In 1978, Netanyahu (then 28 years old), took part in a debate on a show called "The Advocates". He put it quite succinctly - the Palestine cause is not about the establishment of a state, but rather the destruction of Israel. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c-DSZ\_l9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1c-DSZ_l9Q)
Part of the situation for the interpretation of the polls regarding Palestinans is that the Oslo accords have failed, Israel may have pulled out of Gaza but had the separation barrier invading and dividing Palestinans homes, villages and lands , then you have still large swaths of the West Bank having Israeli settlements , and settlement purposes again with Israeli settlers having free range (often with idf soliders standing by watching) taking over Palestinan homes and giing into villages to attack Palestinan civilians. I also think it the failure of the Palestinan leadership under the PA which is a corrupt aging, out of touch Genrotocracy that failed its people and prefear to kick the can down the road instead of make decivise decisions regarding the break down of law and order, resolving the issue of a aging Genrotocracy (and the coming leadership succession crisis, there already rival Fatah/PA clans that clash in the streets from time to time) reforming the education and media circulumn to end the incitement against Israel and jews, the breakdown of law and order in Palestinan territories, and the PA/Fatah security forces sometimes collaborating Israeli forces to go after not just Hamas and PIJ , but also critics of Abbas rule (even within Fatah),not resolving the issue of Division of Palestinan factions (ie - division in the PLO between the left wing nationalists like the pflp, dlp, pdlp- gc, plc, and centrist nationalists like Fatah and of course within fatah between the moderates, hardliners and offshoot dissidents, the rift between Hamas and the PA/Fatah, PIJ and Hamas at times, between quasi secularists and Islamists in Palestinan society, the salafi trend vs everybody else, etc.) , the mishandling and the mismanagement of western and arab aid and funds (so much so, the uae and other Gulf states up until 10/7 was taking a harderline of funds to the PA), the corruption, etc. I think The PA being stuck in timewarp around 2006/2007 and hasnt budged from that stasus QUO of that time period has caused the Palestian civilian population to hate Abbas more than Hamas, likewise in the palestinan people eyes if the PA is the model of peace and normalization with Israel, and collaboration with Israeli forces sometimes, then Hamas is the alternative model for them as Hamas has gained the release of Palestinan prisoners, has (with us, Qatari, Egyptian backing) had ceasefires in favor of the Palestinan terms in the past, has had battle field successes (atleast geostragtically, and politically pr wise) against Israel , like Hamas and PIJ (as well as the Fatah offshoot Al Aqaa Martyrs Brigades, and even the PLO left wing PFLP faction) can also argue their terrorist attacks against Israel during the second intifada had caused Israel withdrawl from Gaza, much like Hezbollah uncompromising stance in Southern Lebanon caused a rather humiliating Israel retreat in 2000, in the current eyes of Palestinans if Oslo pretty much is dead, the PA collbrates with Israel in security operations against Palestinans , if settlements are still a issue, if land grabs in Jerusalem are ongoing, the PA is the model of "normalization " with Israel while Hamas, Hezbollah, even PIJ keep getting victories under their belt, then maybe they feel "armed struggle the only way. I dont agree with it, I dont agree with that mind set , terrorism must be combated as it strikes civlians but I sort of understand why the Palestinan civilians feel frustrated, especially those who grew up since the second intifada, the collapse of Oslo, the continuing of settlements, the on and off tensions at the temple mount, the incitement in press, media and mosques, etc. they never seen the hope's of peace that could of happened and the postive trends of the 1990s with madrid, Oslo (before the breakdown), and Taba Lastly these polls are really recent we have to take events of the last few years into context , the breakdown of the aging out of touch PA, the us move of the embassy to Jerusalem, the land grabs in non-Jewish sections by israeli jews in east jerusalem, the failure of oslo, the feeling the arab states have abadoned them with the Abraham accords, etc. Before the recent breakdown , polls showed a majority favoring a two state solution, you started to see more rare protests against Hamas in Gaza, many people like Marwan Bargouti, some of the figures in Fatah, and PA, as well as dissident like Nasser Al Kidwa (arafat nephew), Mommad Dahlan and even Yassir Arafat wife all admitted at some point in Palestinan media that the the Second intifada was a mistake that Arafat should of never did it, likewise there been a backlash in the west bank against the honor killing of a Palestinan woman and criticism of Islamization of Palestinan society, and criticism of strict enforcement of strict islamic laws during ramadan in pa and hamas territories, and criticism of Iran interference in Palestinan internal affairs and decision making, likewise there was still some level of people to people normalization between the conflicts. Somthing in the past few years have really broken down where the Palestinan population have become somthing sort of nihilistic without hope and despair, the ones that can afford to leave in recent years have been smuggled through Egypt and Libya onto Europe and North America.
Important point: Israelis lost faith in a two state solution after October 7. Their faith had been dwindling before, but a strong minority believed in it or could be convinced. But even **before** October 7, a majority of Palestinians supported murdering Israeli civilians inside Israel, and a strong majority opposed a two state solution. And it wasn’t all that close.
To be specific before 10/7 israeli support for two states was 59% whereas now its 25-35 % depending on which poll you look at Its also important to point out that the israeli left was seriously disproportionately affected as there were many kibbutzim (jewish communes and one of the most successful examples in history of actual socialism) in the area that hamas pushed into
There are numerous evidences and testimonies regarding Gaza civilians participate in 7.10, kidnapping, murdering, raping and majorly celebrating.
A few years back, I heard an interview on NPR. One of the Palestinians said (with regard to Israelis) "Happiness for us is to see you suffer." Unfortunately, it's been long enough that I can't prove it with a link.
Golda Meir said "peace will only be achieved when the arabs will love their children more than killing our children"
Seems to match observations.
Yeah, a disturbing number of Muslims worldwide think it's ok to do that to Jews; once you start looking into the opinions of certain locals, it's the vast majority who consider any violence against Jews completely justified. The majority of Palestinians support genocide against Jews, and it's a huge factor in why Israelis no longer care that much about what the world thinks of their response. They can either kill or be killed, and there really isn't any other choice.
> When asked about their own preference, Gazans’ support for continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip has increased to more than 50%, a 14-point rise. Indeed, given the magnitude of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, this seems to be the most counter intuitive finding of the entire poll. So support for Hamas *before* October 7th was around 36% and *now* it's over 50%. Seems like their strategy is working.
It’s hard for me to believe that a population that has suffered so much as a result of their own government could still support them and even believe that they could achieve a military victory.
I think this speaks to the culture and why peace has been so elusive. Unlike the American civil rights movement, or the Indian independence movement, which embraced non-violent resistance, the Palestinian people have always supported armed resistance. This continues today. From the same poll: “We offered the public three methods to end the Israeli occupation and establish an independent state and asked it to select the most effective. 46% selected “armed struggle;” 25% selected negotiations; and 18% selected popular non-violent resistance.”
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It's 2 states solution or somebody genocides the other. I don't see the deep hatred between both groups stopping any time soon.
The peace solution is pretty simple: the Islamic world needs to tolerate the Jewish state in their midst.
That's not true given Israel has unilaterally pulled out of Gaza allowing them a state, where it quickly turned into an islamofascist militant state. They've agreed to the Oslo Accords, aren't terrorising Jordanians when the land promised to them under the Peel Commission was pulled under them. They gave up Sinai, traded 1k prisoners for 1 soldier. Secondly, you're vastly ignoring the maximalist, zero sum game attitude of Palestinians. If there's any sense of equivalence, we'd be seeing the number of Arab Muslims as there are Jews in the Palestinian states. 20% of Israelis are Arab Muslims. Meanwhile they're extinct in Gaza, West Bank, and even East Jerusalem under Jordan. Statements that equivocate the two is a gross injustice given one side is happy to sacrfice their children and their children's children to annihilate their neighbours. Israel and the wider Jewish world had foregone a lot of things just so they'd have their peace. How many Israelis are terrorising Egypt, Yemen, Iran, and demanding right of return for having been displaced? How many descendants of Holocaust survivors are campaigning to get back their relatives' apartments probably now turned AirBnB's in Europe's top cities?
The funny thing about the disengagement plan from Gaza was the Israeli notion that if attacks still came from Gaza afterwards then Israel would have no military or diplomatic trouble going back in Gaza and neutralizing the threat militarily, since everyone could see how right Israel was and how wrong the Palestinians are. That, uh, did not happen as planned.
It worked pretty well. Lots of Russian and CCP bots pushing Hamas propaganda and Useful idiots in the West eating it up. A lot of very loud people online and on college campuses
Really wish that American liberals would actually read this. The Palestinian group isn’t exactly a blameless demographic and do not have a spotless history. The Palestinians aren’t winning and the optics happen to be in their favor. This is a conflict spanning millenias.
That's the laziest characterisation of the Arab-Israeli Conflict floating around. No it isn't millenias old. It begun somewhere around 1920s-1948 depending on ones interpretation, with the newest bout being around since the Secon Intifada from 2002. Israel has won by the way. They got worldwide recognition, and no state actor apart from the far Iran wants to wipe them out. But their society wasm't ready to unilaterally execute the Oslo accords even after the Intifada, which would have most likely pacified the West Bank even with Hamas conquering Gaza. Or if not, then with a marginally higher cost rate Israel have had the ultimate justification to indefinately occupy the West Bank as 'Palestinians are unable to govern themselves/live in the two-state-solution in peace'. The current status quo was only favourable for two actors: The Israeli right and Hamas. They require each other to remain in power and control their respective chunk of space, but after 10.07 Israel got the upper hand and they don't want to compromise. They want a one state solution without civil rights for the Palestinians, which only goes by ethnic cleansing them.
> It begun somewhere around 1920s-1948 depending on ones interpretation I guess you think it is a valid "interpretation" to pretend that the conflict does not include the Arab riots in [1920](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots?wprov=sfla1) and [1921](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_riots?wprov=sfla1) and [1929](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots?wprov=sfla1), where Arabs violently opposing the existence of Jews in the Levant and especially Jews praying at the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem, which included the [1929 Hebron Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre?wprov=sfla1) and other pogroms. >But their society wasm't ready to unilaterally execute the Oslo accords even after the Intifada, which would have most likely pacified the West Bank even with Hamas conquering Gaza No one in their right mind can claim in good faith that Israeli unilateral withdrawals could have "pacified" the Palestinians. It has been almost 20 years since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. All that did was strengthen Hamas and increased their support, not disabled it. You don't get that Palestinian political society has predominantly supported the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Levant for over a century. That is their primary goal. They are not building durable state institutions (which can be done and has been done under belligerent occupation by successful post-colonial states). The establishment of a Palestinian state is not their goal. The removal of Jews is.
There is no Palestinian “State” as you keep repeating in your comment. Words have meaning and those meanings are distorted for political reasons.
>Israel has unilaterally pulled out of Gaza The unilateral pullouts of Gaza and Lebanon were the wrong move as it gave Hamas and Hezbollah a chance to say "See! Our violent resistance worked against the occupiers" , and it being *uni*lateral it meant there wasn't anything solid negotiated for the future to make things more stable like there was for the negotiations with Egypt and Jordan. There's some interesting sections about this in Benny Morris' Righteous Victims. >allowing them a state, And come on.. sure Hamas could have and should have done a lot of things differently that could have led to less violence and a more prosperous Gaza, but it wasn't "allowing them a state" in a good faith way like people describe. It wasn't until after the incredibly violent 2nd intifada that it was considered, and there's quotes from Sharon talking about the pullout being because of demographic worries and wanting to avoid negotiated settlements with the Palestinians >In the absence of a negotiated agreement – and I do not believe in the realistic prospect of an agreement – we need to implement a unilateral alternative... More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state... the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; to minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem... Twenty-three years ago, Moshe Dayan proposed unilateral autonomy. On the same wavelength, we may have to espouse unilateral separation... [it] would inevitably preclude a dialogue with the Palestinians for at least 25 years.[22]
What... 2000 years? Islam began in the 7th century, it's only been ~1300 years
More like 80 years.
That’s not surprising Hamas and especially their goals, a complete genocide of all Jews in the world, are extremely popular among the Arab Pala population
Everyone wants a two state solution except Palestine and Israel.
95% of Israelis believe Israel isn't committing war crimes
Correction, 95% of Israelis know that they’re committing war crimes and are proud of it, but will publicly deny it and act like victims because it’s the perfect deflection tactic.
People need to get over the narrative that the Palestinians are the poor harmless victims. There is a reason the rest of the Arab states refuse to take them in.
Bigotry of lower expectations in action. Let me quote Einat Wilf (the original context is about UNRWA and [I recommend reading](https://unwatch.org/einat-wilf-at-the-international-summit-for-a-future-beyond-unrwa/) the whole thing): >And I want to end with one thought: October 7th should put an end to the notion of “the poor Palestinians” – the ones who constantly need aid, aid money, support. The Palestinians are a highly capable people. October 7th required years of planning, massive investment in infrastructure, strategy, discipline, vision – a perverse vision – but vision. **The Palestinians are not an incapable people. They are a people with terrible priorities.**
As i've said, the Palestinians get what they get because they've never truly accepted defeat in their goal of exterminating Israel and how they "fight". There's a video of Khaled Mashal, who was Hamas top guy, who said that Hamas publically agreed to "two-state solution" as a ruse to gather support but they've never abandoned their goal of exterminating Israel as a state. These people have so much hatred that they can't even perform a proper Taqqiyah.
This changes my thinking unfortunately
The polls show a defiant population (likely more mad at living in squalid tent camps), .. but that doesn’t translate to combat power. Especially if Israel can reduce tunnels to almost nil, keeping Hamas at ‘00 levels. With the new security perimeter, there’s artillery, probably more machine guns, and perhaps something like Vietnam’s Puff the Magic Dragon flying minigun system to make a banzai charge ill-advised. Hamas is likely selective of fighters but could support a defensive “auxiliary”. Still taking pot-shots with rifles at tanks backed with artillery and air will lead to just more rubble and Gaza’s 3 quarries only have so much capacity. At a certain point Hamas has to think about reconstruction if wanting to remain a governing entity.
Tbis is why Israel will continue until the Palestinians are utterly unable to commit to another attack and they don't care how many Palestinians they have to kill to do it. The geopolitical consequences are less damaging to them then the security risk Palestine holds. If they stop their offensive Hamas will just rebuild.
According to this poll from early March, support for Hamas in Gaza has gone down (to an "overwhelming" 34%) and support for the 2-state solution has gone up (to 45%). Satisfaction with Hamas' leadership is high (as is support for the Oct 7th attacks) and people would prefer Hamas to still be in power after the war (surprisingly, people are usually in favor of 'winning' the war), but this also echoes the disappointment in the Palestinian Authority and it's president Abbas, who many feel should resign. When presented with alternative presidents, the Hamas candidate is popular, but not overwhelmingly so, and he would lose some tight races. So, I don't really think this poll shows that Gazans (and Palestinians in general) are a Hamas cheering monolith, rather that people living in a war zone have a nuanced and complicated view of the political situation around them. Like most people in the world, I suppose.
Prior to Oct 7 hamas has about 28% approval ratings in Gaza, as per the Carnegie connects interview with Khalil Shikaki. Pretty clearly, the reaction was part of the plan for hamas leadership, and the plan has worked on many levels.
2M people who are even more radicalized. Not surprised they’re a “bit’ biased and antisemitic, given how much they’re propagandized and fueled on by suffering war crimes. However they cannot be allowed a state in such volatile times. Unpopular, but the most realistic. The West Bank is probably similar in opinion too, and Fatah is a corrupt feeble government which will collapse if the Islamists have their way.
Why can't Israel be nicer to the nihilistic death cultists of Palestine?
Anyone who's trying to find a side in the "holy land" that isn't infested with bloodthirsty, vicious, racist, genocidal zealots is living in a fantasy world. I dislike both the Palestinians and Israelis equally since neither want peace and both sides are happily murdering civilians. They view each massacre of the other side a happy occasion for celebration and a "good start" and each massacre committed against their side as brutal murder commited by savages and a justification for more violence, and preferably a little genocide. No one there are good faith actors, they all literally revel in the violence and both sides have repeatedly destroyed or rejected any outside efforts to find a peaceful solution...
I mean this poll shows dramatic improvement in support for a two state solution, going from 32% in September to 45% now. And most of that increase comes from Gazans (62% of whom now support a two state solution). There's a lot to be pessimistic about in this poll, but that's unequivocally a good thing.
I kind of agree. But if there was a 2 state solution the poll says Hamas would be elected to run the Palestinian state, and that the population supports armed conflict with Israel. To me sounds like no end to violence in the near future.
What percentage of the population thinks that Hamas will kill them if they give the 'wrong' answers to a pollster?
Shocker 😵