Sunday, December 31, 2023
Elder of ZiyonGazans know the truth. Fresh polling data reported by AFP indicates that on the eve of Oct. 7, “many Gazans were hostile to Hamas ahead of the group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with some describing its rule as a second occupation.”The AFP article says:
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| Amaney Jamal |
"We find in our surveys that 67 percent of Palestinians in Gaza had little or no trust in Hamas in that period right before the attacks," said Amaney Jamal, dean of Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs."This is especially important because of the (erroneous) argument that all of Gaza supports Hamas, and therefore all of Gaza should be held accountable for the actions, atrocious actions of Hamas."Jamal is one of the driving forces behind the Arab Barometer which conducts surveys and polling in the region, including in Gaza where fieldwork concluded on the eve of the attacks on Israel.She said that Hamas, which won elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006 and is designated a "terrorist" organization by Washington and the EU, was seen as "corrupt" and "authoritarian" by many respondents."Seventy-five percent said in the previous 30 days, they could not afford to feed their households. So again, this is an impoverished society, a society that is basically saying the Hamas-led government has some levels of corruption," said Jamal.
It is true that most Gazans felt Hamas was corrupt ahead of the war. They aren't blind; it is a corrupt organization - giving land and apartments and other perks to its own members, spending money on tunnels instead of the wellbeing of Gazans. Everyone in Gaza knows this.
But that doesn't mean that they were against Hamas' genocidal aims.
A majority of Gazans, and of Palestinians altogether, supported "armed struggle" - meaning terrorism - against Israeli civilians ahead of the war. And as I've noted many times, when asked after the fact whether they support specific terror attack against Israeli civilians, the numbers are consistently over 70% for over 20 years.
This "expert" and others have been twisting the poll results in the media to imply something that is the opposite of the truth, that Gazans hate Hamas terror and want peace.
In that same AFP article, Jamal added a whopping lie:
Ahead of the attacks on Israel, more than half of respondents favored a two-state solution -- a Palestinian state alongside Israel.The remainder opted either for a Palestinian-Israeli confederation or a one-state solution. But one-in-five supported armed resistance before the events of October 7, and the massive Israeli military response that followed."(Gazans were) open to a peaceful reconciliation with Israel based on 1967 borders," Jamal said.
In polls, everything depends on how a question is worded. And in this case, the Gazans were given four choices - but not the choice that they have consistently and overwhelmingly supported from the beginning, which is a single Arab state and destroying Israel. When asked if they support “regaining all of historical Palestine from the river to the sea” Palestinians always choose that over a two state solution. And even a September poll showed that Palestinians opposed a two state solution by a 2-1 margin.
The dean of Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs is lying. She is whitewshing what Palestinians really think, which can be seen consistently in poll after poll. She is pushing propaganda that Palestinians want to live in peace with Israel and that it is Israeli actions, like defending itself from a genocidal group, that cause Palestinians to hate Israel.
Arab hate for Jews, including in Palestine, was around for centuries before 1948. And that is something that is not taught in Princeton or any other Ivy League school, nor mentioned in any AFP article, nor ever even considered by Thomas Friedman.
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