Gazans Have Always Wanted To Kill Jews Inside Of Israel

As Israel attempts to free hostages in Gaza taken captive by the political-terrorist group Hamas, people are debating how innocent Gazans are relative to the group that administers the territory. Those defending Palestinian Arabs argue that Hamas seized the territory in 2007 from the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority so cannot be held responsible. They dismiss that Palestinians voted Hamas to 58% of parliament since that election happened in 2006 and doesn’t represent current attitudes.

Arguable the best way to truly consider Gazans attitudes towards Israel, both before and after Hamas took over Gaza, is to look at poll data.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) has been conducting polls of West Bank and Gazan Arabs since the turn of the century. There are many questions that change based on the reality of the moment and some which have remained consistent.

Supporting terrorism has been a constant through the polls. For over twenty years, it has been a question that is asked in that format: “Concerning armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, I….” with the choice of either Strongly support/ Support/ Oppose / Strongly oppose / NA. Here are the results, with links to the original polls.

Date	Strongly Support / Support	Strongly Oppose / Oppose
July 2001	58%	39%
May 2002	59.1%	40%
April 2003	64.1%	35%
March 2004	61.4%	37.5%
March 2005	43.6%	55%
March 2006	63.9%	34.7%
June 2007	73.7%	26.1%
June 2008	63.2%	36.1%
March 2009	66.9%	31.6%
March 2010	57.6%	40.9%
March 2011	60.4%	37.2%
March 2012	62.1%	37.1%
March 2013	53.4%	44.4%
March 2014	53.3%	46.1%
April 2015	67.3%	31.0%
March 2016	75.7%	23.3%
March 2017	67.4%	29.4%
March 2018	70.9%	27.6%
June 2019	69.0%	27.4%
March 2020	75.1%	23.1%
March 2021	69.6%	27.5%
March 2022	64%	36%
March 2023	67%	33%

As seen in the table above, two-thirds of Gazans support terrorism, specifically, killing Jewish civilians inside of Israel like the gruesome massacre of October 7, 2023. That suggests 1.5 million Gazans (67% of 2.25 million Gazans) were supporters of the Hamas barbarism.

This was not a momentary blip in time. Over the past 23 years, there was a single moment – when Israel left Gaza – that only 43.6% of Gazans supported murdering Israeli Jews. At any other time, a majority between 53% and 76% approved terrorism.

The spike in support for terrorism in June 2007 coincided with confidence that Hamas’s approach of attacks yields better results than Fatah’s approach of negotiations, both “in stopping Israeli settlement activities” which portrayed “Hamas as successful in breaking the [Israeli] siege and as a victim of Israeli attacks,” according to PCPSR.

The support is not theoretical.

In March 2011, when two Palestinian Arabs went into the town of Itamar and slaughtered two parents and three children in their beds, 51% of Gazans supported the grisly killing when asked specifically about the attack (question 67).

The people of Gaza are not “innocent” and victims of Hamas, and the media constant refrain of saying as much is a deliberate lie meant to narrow the scope of the conflict.