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What Do Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank Really Think About Israel and Hamas?
Former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Professor Khalil Shakaki’s public opinion polls made headlines last month. After revealing Hamas documents, the IDF claimed that the Palestinian terrorist organization falsified the results of the polls conducted by Shakaki in the Gaza Strip, in order to create a false representation of the Gazan public’s support for Hamas after the October 7 massacre.
Shikaki, who is considered the leading pollster of Palestinian society, heads the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) located in Ramallah, and has been conducting public opinion polls since September 1993 with the beginning of the Oslo process.
The IDF found documents stating that Hamas falsified the data regarding the Gaza Strip in a survey conducted by Shikaki in March 2024.
For example, in one of the questions in the survey, Gazans were asked whether the “decision to attack Israel on October 7 was correct.” While the results of the survey published by Shikaki showed that 71% believed that the decision was correct, Hamas documents claim that only 31% believed so.
Another question was who Palestinians would vote for in a presidential election. While the results of the survey published by Shikaki showed that Hamas candidate Ismail Haniyeh would receive 48% compared to 22% for Fatah candidate Abu Mazen, and 23% responded that they would not participate in the elections, the IDF says that Hamas documents claim that the “true results” were 21% for Haniyeh, 26% for Abu Mazen, and 52% who would not participate in the elections.
Another question examined was the preferred way to achieve the Palestinian national goals. While the results of the survey in the Gaza Strip published by Shikaki showed that the armed struggle receives 39%, peaceful popular resistance 27%, and negotiations 23%, Hamas documents claim that the “true results” were 28% for armed struggle, 21% for peaceful popular resistance, and 50% for negotiations.
Ultimately, it’s very difficult to know if the polling data in the Gaza Strip was indeed falsified as part of a Hamas influence operation to strengthen its position among Palestinian society and global public opinion.
Although Shikaki himself claims that it is unlikely that the polls were falsified, it is important to consider two things when examining the claims of forgeries.
First, the polls show that the support figures for the October 7 attack, for Hamas, and for the armed struggle among the Palestinians in the West Bank — where it is not claimed that Hamas falsified the polls — are the same and even higher than those in the Gaza Strip.
For example, a survey from March 2024 showed that 71% of Palestinians in the West Bank believe that the decision to launch the attack on October 7 was correct, while in the June 2024 poll, the figure rises to 73%. In the Gaza Strip, the “false” figure was 71% in the March 2024 survey (compared to 31% according to Hamas documents), a figure that even dropped to 57% in the June 2024 poll.
Regarding the question of the presidential elections, according to the June 2024 poll, Ismail Haniyeh receives 38% compared to 21% for Abu Mazen in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank the gap is larger in favor of Haniyeh, who received 46% compared to only 5% for Abu Mazen. Also, on the question of what is the preferred way to realize the Palestinian national goals, the March 2024 poll shows that while in the Gaza Strip, according to the “false” data, the armed struggle receives 39% (while according to Hamas data it is 28%), in the West Bank the figure rises to 51%.
Thus, the question arises, is Hamas also successful in falsifying the polls in the West Bank, or is it really a matter of broad popular support for Hamas? Another explanation is that after months of war with Israel because of Hamas’ massacre on October 7, the population in Gaza (which, unlike in the West Bank, has felt the results of the war) does feel differently.
Reality shows us that in the eyes of the Palestinians, Hamas is the only organization that has succeeded in posing a security challenge to Israel and hitting its soft underbelly, while the Palestinian Authority and Fatah have failed in their mission.
Second, how can the roars of joy and jubilation in the Gaza Strip in particular and the Palestinian public in general be explained in light of the barbaric terrorist attack of October 7, when many Palestinians felt that the State of Israel was about to disappear? Doesn’t Hamas want us to know that Palestinian society is a peace-loving society whose entire goal is coexistence with the State of Israel and its citizens, and it is absolutely not a barbaric society that sanctifies the murder of Jews for the past hundred years?
Unfortunately, it seems that the reality of the last hundred years is the winning proof of the question of how the Palestinians think.
Dr. Ori Wertman is a lecturer and research fellow at the University of South Wales, UK, and a research fellow at The Israel Centre for Grand Strategy- ICGS. His recent book is Israel: National Security and Securitization (Springer, 2023).
The post What Do Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank Really Think About Israel and Hamas? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
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