Wartime Palestinian ballot reveals surge in Hamas help, near 90% need U.S.-backed Abbas to resign

RAMALLAH, West Bank — A wartime opinion ballot amongst Palestinians printed Wednesday reveals an increase in help for Hamas, even within the devastated Gaza Strip, and an amazing rejection of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas, with almost 90% saying he should resign.

The findings by a Palestinian pollster sign extra difficulties forward for the Biden administration’s postwar imaginative and prescient for Gaza and lift questions on Israel‘s stated goal of ending Hamas‘ military and governing capabilities.

Washington has called for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, to eventually assume control of Gaza and run both territories as a precursor to statehood. U.S. officials have said the PA must be revitalized, without letting on whether this would mean leadership changes.

The PA administers pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has governed Gaza until a takeover by Hamas militants in 2007. The 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 soundly rejected any role for the PA in Gaza and insists Israel must retain open-ended security control there. Arab allies of the U.S. have said they’ll solely get entangled in post-war reconstruction if there’s a reputable push towards a two-state answer, which is unlikely below Netanyahu’s authorities, dominated by opponents of Palestinian statehood.

With survey outcomes indicating an additional erosion of the PA’s legitimacy, at a time when there’s no obvious path towards restarting credible negotiations on Palestinian statehood, the default for postwar Gaza is an open-ended Israeli occupation, stated pollster Khalil Shikaki.

“Israel is stuck in Gaza,” Shikaki informed The Associated Press forward of the publication of the survey’s outcomes by his Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, or PSR. “Maybe the next (Israeli) government will decide that Netanyahu is not right in putting all these conditions, and they might decide to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. But the default for the future, for Israel and Gaza, is that Israel is in full reoccupation of Gaza.”

The survey was carried out amongst 1,231 folks within the West Bank and Gaza from Nov. 22-Dec. 2, with an error margin of 4 proportion factors. In Gaza, ballot staff carried out interviews throughout a weeklong cease-fire that ended Dec. 1. Shikaki, who runs common polls, stated the error margin was one proportion level increased than regular due to war-related mass displacement.

The survey supplied insights about Palestinian views of the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and different Gaza militants on southern Israel, during which about 1,200 folks had been killed, most of them civilians. Israel‘s subsequent warfare on Hamas has killed greater than 18,400 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them girls and youngsters, in a sustained bombing marketing campaign and floor offensive in Gaza, now in its third month.

Despite the devastation, 57% of respondents in Gaza and 82% within the West Bank imagine Hamas was appropriate in launching the assault, the ballot indicated. A big majority believed Hamas‘ claims that it acted to defend a serious Islamic shrine in Jerusalem in opposition to Jewish extremists and win the discharge of Palestinian prisoners. Only 10% stated they believed Hamas has dedicated warfare crimes, with a big majority saying they didn’t see movies exhibiting the militants committing atrocities.

The movies, together with in depth eyewitness testimony and reporting by The Associated Press and others, present that a whole lot of civilians, together with girls and youngsters, had been kidnapped or gunned down inside their very own houses. There have additionally been accounts of widespread sexual violence.

But whereas Israeli media protection has centered intensely on the assault within the weeks since, Palestinian media has been fixated on the warfare in Gaza and the struggling of civilians there.

Shikaki famous that Gaza residents are extra essential of Hamas than these within the West Bank, that help for Hamas sometimes spikes during times of armed battle earlier than leveling out, and that even now, most Palestinians don’t again the militant group.

He stated the most well-liked politician stays Marwan Barghouti, a outstanding determine in Abbas‘ Fatah motion who’s serving a number of life phrases in an Israeli jail for his alleged position in a number of lethal assaults in the course of the second Palestinian rebellion 20 years in the past. In a two-way presidential race, Ismail Haniyeh, the exiled political chief of Hamas, would trounce Abbas whereas in a three-way race, Barghouti could be forward simply barely, Shikaki stated.

Overall, 88% need Abbas to resign, up by 10 proportion factors from three months in the past. In the West Bank, 92% known as for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration broadly seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.

At the identical time, 44% within the West Bank stated they supported Hamas, up from simply 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants loved 42% help, up from 38% three months in the past.

Shikaki stated help for the PA declined additional, with almost 60% now saying it ought to be dissolved. In the West Bank, Abbas‘ continued safety coordination with Israel‘s army in opposition to Hamas, his bitter political rival, is broadly unpopular.

Netanyahu has attacked Abbas for years, alleging he was enabling anti-Israeli incitement within the West Bank, whereas on the similar time allowing common Qatari help funds to Gaza that strengthened Hamas. Critics of Netanyahu‘s general strategy say it was aimed toward stopping negotiations on Palestinian statehood.

The ballot additionally signaled widespread frustration with the worldwide neighborhood, significantly the United States, key European international locations and even the United Nations, which has pushed for a direct humanitarian cease-fire.

“The level of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism is huge among Palestinians because of the positions they have taken regarding international humanitarian law and what is happening in Gaza,” Shikaki stated.