Ali Sawafta
Updated Thu, June 13, 2024
Israeli raid in Jenin
By Ali Sawafta
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) -Support for armed struggle as the best means to end Israeli occupation and achieve statehood rose among Palestinians while backing for the militant group Hamas also increased slightly in the last three months, according to an opinion poll.
The poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) showed support for armed struggle climbed by 8 percentage points to 54% of those surveyed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Support for Hamas rose by 6 percentage points to 40%. Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, had 20% backing.
The polling was carried out some eight months since the start of the Gaza war, which began when Hamas fighters stormed communities in Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 250, according to Israeli tallies, prompting the Gaza war.
More than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the devastating offensive Israel has waged in Hamas-ruled Gaza since then, Gaza health authorities say.
The poll found that two-thirds thought the Oct. 7 attack was a correct decision - a 4 percentage point drop from the previous poll. The decrease came from Gaza, where 57% of respondents said the decision was correct, down from 71% in March.
It showed that about 80% of Palestinians in Gaza had lost a relative or had a relative that had been injured in the war.
Walid Ladadweh, head of the Survey Research Unit at PSR, said that the increase in support for Hamas and armed action, while not significant compared to the previous poll, was a reaction to Israel's destruction and killing in Gaza.
He also said the poll reflected dissatisfaction with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority led by Abbas, who has long sought to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and rejects armed struggle.
The peace process which Palestinians hoped would yield a state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital - territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war - has been moribund for years, while Israel has expanded settlements in the West Bank and opposes Palestinian statehood.
Abbas and the Islamist Hamas have long been at odds over strategy, with Hamas viewing as a failure his approach of trying to negotiate a Palestinian state alongside Israel and advocating armed struggle.
"This war, like previous ones, has radicalization effects on both sides," said Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
More than 60% supported the PA's dissolution, the poll found, and 89% want Abbas to resign, up from 84% three months ago.
Hamas - which has long been shunned by many Western governments as a terrorist organisation and whose charter calls for Israel's destruction - seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Abbas-led PA in 2007 after defeating Fatah the previous year in a legislative election.
While the polls show Hamas has more support than Fatah, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti is the most popular preference as Abbas' successor, with 39% supporting him, followed by Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh with 23%.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer, asked about the Palestinian poll, said: "I've got no way of knowing whether that's correct or not. Unfortunately it does sound as if it's correct. What sort of leadership does the Palestinian people have that lead them to this perpetual war?"
"Once Hamas is defeated, afterwards, we want Gaza to be run by Gazans - but not Gazans that are intent on killing Jews."
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows
Thu, June 13, 2024
Palestinian protesters hold placards during a protest called by the Fatah movement in Nablus, the West Bank. 26 October 2023. | Ayman Nobani/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom
A lot of people have theories about what Palestinians want, whether it's protesters in New York calling for a Hamas victory, U.S. President Joe Biden trying to set up a demilitarized Palestinian state, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming that Palestinians can't rule themselves. But very few people have bothered to actually ask Palestinians what they want.
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) released its latest poll data from the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday. It turns out that Palestinians are unhappy with all of the current options—including the Biden administration's plan for international governance of Gaza.
The last Palestinian election was held in 2006. Although no party won a majority, Hamas had the largest bloc in parliament, with 44 percent of the votes. The Bush administration encouraged Palestinian security officers to launch a coup d'etat against Hamas, which led to a Palestinian civil war. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and Fatah has ruled the West Bank, both as one-party states.
If parliamentary elections were held today, most Palestinians wouldn't vote for either option. Hamas would get 32 percent of the vote, Fatah would get 17 percent of the vote, and a full 50 percent would either sit out of the election or vote for a third party. The survey showed similarly abysmal turnout rates in a presidential election—with one twist.
If the former guerrilla leader Marwan Barghouti were allowed to run, he would handily defeat both the Hamas and Fatah candidates. Barghouti has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002 for his role in several attacks on Israelis, which he denies ordering. Since then, he has said that he accepts the pre-1967 borders of Israel and called for "peaceful popular resistance."
That said, when PCPSR asked Palestinians what the best path to independence was, 54 percent said "armed struggle," as opposed to 16 percent who supported peaceful resistance and 25 percent who supported negotiations. It was a drop from December 2023, when 63 percent chose armed struggle.
Still, only 46 percent of Palestinians in Gaza told PCPSR they preferred Hamas rule. Instead, 11 percent said that they wanted the same Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, and 34 percent said they wanted the Palestinian Authority with new leadership.
Even before the current war, Hamas was unpopular in Gaza. Just before the October 7 attacks, an overwhelming majority of Gazans told Arab Barometer that they had little or no trust in the Hamas-run government. In the summer of 2023, protests broke out in Gaza over the cost of living, and Hamas responded with a police crackdown.
However, the unpopularity of Hamas doesn't mean that Palestinians support Israeli rule. Direct Israeli military control polled at 1 percent among Gazans, and "a local authority formed by Israel" did little better, polling at 2 percent. "Control by tribes/large families," one of the models for ruling Gaza that the Netanyahu government has reportedly been toying with, similarly polled at 2 percent among Gazans.
According to a Politico report published on Wednesday, the Biden administration has come around to a different solution: an interim government in Gaza backed by an international military coalition. That option would be no more popular than Israeli rule. Only 2 percent supported rule by foreign forces or the United Nations.
Palestinians might not agree on what they want, but they know what they don't want.
The post Most Palestinians Don't Want Hamas Rule, Poll Shows appeared first on Reason.com.
AFP
Thu, June 13, 2024
Many areas have been devastated by the war, including here in Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip (Eyad BABA)
Some Gazans have criticised the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the besieged and conflict-ravaged Palestinian territory, for failing to end the war with Israel that has devastated their lives.
Hamas has "led the Palestinian people into a war of annihilation", said Umm Ala, 67, who has been displaced twice during more than eight months of war between Hamas-led Palestinian militants and Israel.
"If the Hamas leaders were interested in ending this war and ending the suffering of the Palestinian people, they would have agreed (to a deal)," added Umm Ala, who has now sought refuge in Khan Yunis, the main city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Gazans who spoke to AFP were asked if they thought that Hamas was also responsible for delays in reaching a new truce.
The war broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages on that day. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.
In response to the October 7 attack, Israel's military launched a blistering land, air and sea offensive against Hamas in Gaza that has left at least 37,232 people dead, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-ruled territory's health ministry.
Apart from a one-week truce in November, which saw the release of more than 100 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, several attempts at forging a new ceasefire have failed.
Mediators the United States, Egypt and Qatar are once again engaged in negotiations with Israel and Hamas to try to finalise a deal to end the war.
But some Gazans, who have lived in a climate of fear and restrictions since Hamas seized power in the territory in 2007, blame the Islamists for the vast destruction caused by the war.
Hamas has made a "mockery of us, our pain and the destruction of our lives", said Abu Eyad, 55, who lives in north Gaza.
Abu Eyad, whose three children live with different relatives at separate locations, took aim at Hamas's political leadership hosted by Qatar, saying they were "sleeping comfortably, eating and drinking".
"Have you ever tried to actually live our lives today?" Eyad asked. "Did you know that many times we don't find any food at all?"
- 'Destruction, extermination' -
Washington is currently engaged in a new push for a deal, outlined by President Joe Biden himself on May 31, but has yet to secure an agreement from the warring sides.
Israel and Hamas are once again trading blame, just as they accused each other of derailing previous attempts at ending the war.
"We are tired, we are dead, we are destroyed and our tragedies are countless," said Abu Shaker, 35.
"What are you waiting for?" he asked, addressing the militant group. "What do you want? The war must end at any cost. We cannot bear it any longer."
Despite such criticism, a survey in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank has shown Hamas to be the most popular political force in the territories with 40 percent preference, followed by 20 percent for Fatah which dominates the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.
The poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released on Wednesday also said that "overall support for the October 7 Hamas offensive remains high", albeit with a slight decline, driven by a fall in support in Gaza.
At the beginning of May, Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire agreement, prompting spontaneous celebrations in Gaza.
The survey showed that two-thirds of those asked supported Hamas's decision at the time and expected a halt in fighting within days -- only to be disappointed.
Now the Gazans AFP spoke to are desperate, and all they want is an end to the conflict.
Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to "end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza".
"What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?" she asked.
"Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?"
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