Palestinian poll shows rise in support for Hamas and nearly 90% want US-backed Abbas to resign
US Arab allies have said they will only become involved in post-war reconstruction if there is a credible push towards a two-state solution.
RAMALLAH, West Bank: A poll of wartime Palestinians published on Wednesday shows a rise in support for Hamas, which appears to have increased even in the devastated Gaza Strip, and an overwhelming rejection of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, with almost 90% saying he must resign.
A Palestinian pollster’s findings indicate more difficulties lie ahead for the Biden administration’s post-war vision for Gaza and raise questions about Israel’s stated goal of ending Hamas’ military and governance capabilities.
Washington has called on the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, to eventually take control of Gaza and administer both areas as a precursor to a state. US officials have said the PA should be revived, without saying whether this would mean leadership changes.
The PA administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and governed Gaza until the takeover by Hamas militants in 2007. Palestinians have not held elections since 2006, when Hamas won a parliamentary majority.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, has firmly rejected any role for the PA in Gaza and insists Israel must maintain open-ended security control there.
US Arab allies have said they will only become involved in post-war reconstruction if there is a credible push towards a two-state solution, which is unlikely under the Netanyahu government, dominated by opponents of Palestinian statehood.
With research findings pointing to a further erosion of the PA’s legitimacy, at a time when there is no clear path to resuming credible negotiations on Palestinian statehood, the default for post-war Gaza is an open-ended Israeli occupation, he said. pollster Khalil Shikaki.
“Israel is stuck in Gaza,” Shikaki told The Associated Press ahead of the release of the survey results by his Palestinian Center for Policy and Research (PSR). “Maybe the next (Israeli) government will decide that Netanyahu is not right to impose all these conditions, and they may decide to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. But the standard for the future, for Israel and Gaza, is for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza.”
The survey was conducted from November 22 to December 2 among 1,231 people in the West Bank and Gaza and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points. In Gaza, poll workers conducted 481 in-person interviews during a weeklong ceasefire that ended on December 1.
Shikaki, who regularly conducts polls, said the margin of error was one percentage point higher than normal because of disruptions caused by the mass displacement of residents during the war between Israel and Hamas. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had fled heavy fighting in northern Gaza, and pollsters only conducted interviews in central and southern Gaza, including among displaced people, because they could not reach the north during the ceasefire.
The survey provided insights into Palestinian views on the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other Gaza militants in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, most of whom were civilians. More than 18,400 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed in a sustained bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza during Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas, now in its third month.
Shikaki said that Gaza residents are more critical of Hamas than those in the West Bank, that support for Hamas typically peaks during periods of armed conflict before leveling off, and that even now most Palestinians do not support the militant group.
Despite the destruction, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% in the West Bank believe Hamas was right to launch the October attack, the poll found. A large majority believed Hamas’ claims that it was acting to defend a major Islamic shrine in Jerusalem from Jewish extremists and secure the release of Palestinian prisoners. Only 10% said they believed Hamas has committed war crimes, while a large majority said they had not seen videos of the militants committing atrocities.
The videos, along with extensive eyewitness testimony and reporting by The Associated Press and others, show that hundreds of civilians in southern Israel, including women and children, were kidnapped or shot in their own homes. There are also reports of widespread sexual violence.
But while the Israeli media has focused intensely on the attack in recent weeks, the Palestinian media has been fixated on the war in Gaza and the suffering of civilians there.
Shikaki said the most popular politician remains Marwan Barghouti, a prominent figure in Abbas’ Fatah movement who is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for his alleged role in several deadly attacks during the second Palestinian uprising two decades ago. In a two-way presidential race, Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled political leader of Hamas, would defeat Abbas, while in a three-way race Barghouti would be slightly ahead, the pollster said.
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, an increase of 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has led a government widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, militants enjoyed 42% support, a slight increase from 38% three months ago.
Shikaki said support for the PA continued to decline, with nearly 60% now saying the PA should be disbanded. In the West Bank, Abbas’ continued security coordination with the Israeli army against Hamas, his bitter political rival, is widely unpopular.
Netanyahu has been attacking Abbas for years, claiming he enabled anti-Israel incitement in the West Bank while at the same time allowing regular Qatari aid payments to Gaza that strengthened Hamas. Critics of Netanyahu’s overall approach say it was aimed at preventing negotiations on a Palestinian state.
The poll also showed widespread frustration with the international community, especially the United States, key European countries and even the United Nations, which have urged an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
“The level of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism is enormous among Palestinians because of the positions they have taken regarding international humanitarian law and what is happening in Gaza,” Shikaki said.