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Media Silent on Shocking Palestinian Public Opinion Survey
A boy holds a placard as Palestinian Hamas supporters attend a rally against visits by Israelis to the Al-Aqsa mosque, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, May 26, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
On March 20, 2024, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research published the results of its quarterly survey on the sentiments within Palestinian society regarding Israel, the ongoing war in Gaza, internal Palestinian politics, and the international community.
With much of the media’s attention turned to Gaza and the West Bank, and with Western leaders hoping to restart negotiations for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, one would think that the results of this survey would have been covered by all the mainstream media organizations.
However, with limited exceptions, practically no mainstream news outlet outside of Israel even reported on this survey’s findings and those that did cover it (Newsweek, The New Yorker, NBC News, and USA Today) only reported on certain results while ignoring others.
New poll from PCPSR regarding Palestinian opinion in the West Bank and Gaza.
PCPSR is a reputable source for Palestinian public opinion according to most experts.
This thread will highlight the shocking resultshttps://t.co/t4VkezMidp
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 20, 2024
In its report on the survey’s findings, NBC News highlighted the fact that support for Hamas has dropped among both Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. NBC also reported that, among Gazans, support for “armed armed struggle” has dropped while support for a two-state solution has risen.
The New Yorker similarly noted the seemingly promising results concerning the lower support for “armed struggle,” and the rise in support for a two-state solution among Gazans.
However, there are several flies in the ointment.
For example, while support for Hamas has fallen within Palestinian society, it is still the organization with the most support among Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank, and its support in the West Bank is still 20% higher than it was in September 2023 (before the October 7 attack and subsequent Israeli war against Hamas).
Furthermore, in response to a question about who Palestinians would vote for if another election was held today, Hamas still enjoys the most support among the Palestinian electorate, and it continues to poll higher today than it did in September 2023 (30% in March 2024 versus 21% in September).
Overall, Palestinians want Hamas back in power in Gaza, by a strong majority. pic.twitter.com/QGdQCOA5pz
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 20, 2024
Similarly, while it is true that support for “armed struggle” has fallen among those surveyed, it is still supported by the largest percentage of respondents — and in the West Bank, it is supported by the majority.
As both NBC News and the New Yorker noted, support for a two-state solution has risen among Palestinian respondents in Gaza.
However, in the West Bank (which would likely also be part of a two-state solution), support for a two-state solution hovered around little more than 30%.
Even in Gaza, where support for a two-state solution has risen to 62%, 52% of respondents opposed the restarting of negotiations for a two-state solution.
Other noteworthy results from this survey include:
The number of respondents who support Hamas’ launching of the October 7 attacks rose 14% in Gaza compared to December 2023, but dropped 11 percentage points to 71% in the West Bank.
The vast majority of respondents believe that Hamas did not commit atrocities during the October 7 attack. Among those who have watched videos from the attack, 81% believe that Hamas did not commit atrocities, while among those who did not watch these videos, the number rises to 97%.
Among Gazan respondents, the vast majority (70%) reported that aid distribution in the war-torn territory was discriminatory. Broken down, 90% said that aid distributed by local Palestinian groups was given out in a discriminatory fashion, while 70% said the same for aid given out by UNRWA.
The percentage of Palestinians who blame Hamas for the current suffering in Gaza dropped from 11% to 7% between December 2023 and March 2024. Among Gazans, the number of people who blame Hamas for their suffering dropped from 19% to 9% during this time period.
In both Gaza and the West Bank, the vast majority are still satisfied with the way Hamas and Yahya Sinwar have performed during the current war. While satisfaction with Hamas’ performance dropped to 75% in the West Bank, satisfaction with Hamas among Gazans actually rose 10 points to 62% since December 2023.
By either disregarding the entire survey or only focusing on a select few results, the media appears to be intent on continuing to spread the narrative that a two-state solution is tenable in the near future (and that a failure to reach one will fall largely at the feet of Israel’s right-wing government), that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians, and that UNRWA is a legitimate provider of aid in Gaza.
By choosing to continue with its simplistic image of Palestinian society by largely ignoring the uncomfortable results found in this survey, the media has not only failed to provide its audience with a complete picture of the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, it is also helping to construct a false paradigm through which foreign policymakers and domestic electorates will view the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Silent on Shocking Palestinian Public Opinion Survey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.