Palestinians Believe The World Will Validate The Ends Justify The Means

As it does every three months, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) conducted a poll of Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank in March 2024 as the war from Gaza continued to rage. The poll principally focused on the war, post-war, theoretical elections and Israel, and skipped many of the historic questions.

The results were a bit confusing, even for the pollsters.

The October 7 Massacre

Palestinian Arabs continue to support the raping and brutal slaughter of around 1,200 people in Israel. “While support for Hamas’ offensive on October the 7th remains as high as it was three months ago, Palestinian support in the West Bank has in fact dropped by 11 points while, surprisingly, support in the Gaza Strip has increased by 14 points.” As of March 2024, 71% of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza support the heinous October 7 atrocities.

The vast majority of Arabs have still not watched the videos showing Hamas and Gazans torturing Israelis. “80% [now] (compared to 85% in December 2023) say they did not see videos, shown by international news outlets, showing acts committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians, such as the killing of women and children in their homes; only 19% (11% in the West Bank and 30% in the Gaza Strip) saw these videos.” Perhaps not surprisingly, only 5% of Palestinians think Hamas committed war crimes, while 94% think Israel has committed such crimes in the current war. Even among Palestinians who watched Hamas’s actions on October 7, 81% still believe that Hamas didn’t commit war crimes.

*Blood soaked room in an Israeli nursery after Gazans slaughtered innocent Jews*

The word “hostage” did not appear anywhere in the poll, ignoring one of the main reasons for the current war.

Ongoing War

Three months ago, there was a wide gap between Gazans and Arabs in the West Bank about who will win the war, with 50% of Gazans and 83% of West Bank Arabs believing that Hamas would prevail. That has now shrunken as more Gazans are optimistic about Hamas (56%) while the perceptions in the West Bank declined to 69%, producing an overall decline from 70% to 64% over the last three months.

With the majority of Palestinians believing in Hamas’s victory, a full 59% believe that Hamas will stay in power after the war. That 59% is similar to the 63% who prefer Hamas for the post-war ruling authority.

Palestinian Politics

Palestinians are disgusted by their political leaders. If parliamentary elections were held today, the largest segment (36%) would stay home. Hamas would cruise to victory among the voters winning 30% to only 14% for Fatah.

In electing a new president to replace the current corrupt leader Mahmoud Abbas, a man imprisoned with five life sentences, Marwan Barghouti would win a three-man race which included Abbas and the leader of Hamas, Ismael Haniyeh. However, Hamas would win a two-person race between Haniyeh and Barghouti.

Two-State Solution

A slim majority of 52% of Palestinians reject a two-state solution. The 45% who support a two-state solution is up significantly from 34% and 32% in December 2023 and September 2023, respectively.

War, or as Palestinians like to say “armed struggle,” is still the preferred approach of the local Arabs to end Israeli “occupation.” The percentages are 46%, 25%, 18% for war, negotiations and “peaceful resistance,” respectively. That is a significant change from three months ago when the numbers were 63%, 20% and 13%, respectively. Palestinians are seemingly beginning to tire of the war, even as they remain optimistic about the outcome.

Overall Palestinian Priority

The current war from Gaza is the most pressing issue for Palestinians but the priority is divided between Gazans and West Bank Arabs. A larger 66% of Gazans (up from 64% three months ago) consider the war the most pressing matter, while 50% in the West Bank (up from 42% three months ago), are focused on the war.

The overall most vital issue for Palestinians has become a close race between ending the occupation and forming a state with East Jerusalem as its capital (42%) to 33% desiring a full “right of return” into homes in Israel. This less than ten percentage gap has been a finding in these polls since the May 2021 short war; before that date, there was almost a twenty percentage gap in those two goals.

Conclusion

Palestinians continue to support Hamas and the October 7 massacre, and want to see Hamas continue to rule in Gaza, as they think that ultimately the political-terrorist group will prevail in the war. They seemingly are acknowledging that the battlefield is going horribly but that the world will deliver them a victory, possibly including a new Palestinian state and millions of Arabs pouring into Israel. It’s the 1.5 state solution for Arabs and 0.5 states for Jews as long desired by the fat-left anti-Zionists.

ACTION ITEM

As Palestinians are counting on global support to deliver a victory which they cannot achieve on the battlefield, it is critical to contact elected officials to continue to support Israel and limit support for Palestinians strictly to humanitarian aid until Hamas is completely defeated.