Slightly more than three in four Palestinians have a positive view of Hamas in the wake of its Oct. 7 slaughter in Israel, according to a survey by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) research firm.
The Ramallah-based institute polled 668 Palestinian adults in the southern Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7. (The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points, AWRAD said.)
The Palestinian poll, the first of its kind since the Oct. 7 attacks, found that 48.2% of respondents characterize Hamas’s role as “very positive,” while 27.8% view Hamas as “somewhat positive.” Almost 80% regard the role of Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades “military” wing as positive.
The Al-Qassam Brigades killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and wounded thousands in the Oct. 7 attack on southwestern Israel. In addition, terrorists took some 240 people hostage.
When asked whether they support or oppose Hamas’s actions on Oct. 7, 59.3% of the Palestinians surveyed said they “extremely” supported the attacks and 15.7% said they “somewhat” support the murderous rampage.
Only 12.7% expressed disapproval, with 10.9% saying they neither support nor oppose the attack.
Almost all (98%) of the respondents said the Oct. 7 slaughter made them feel “prouder of their identity as Palestinians,” with an equal percentage saying they would “never forget and never forgive” the Jewish state for its ongoing military operation against Hamas.
Three-quarters said they expect the Israel-Hamas war to end in a Palestinian victory.
In response to the question “What would you like as a preferred government after the war is finished in Gaza Strip,” 72% said they favor a “national unity government” that includes Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.
Approximately 8.5% said they favor a government controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
In addition, more than 98% of Palestinians surveyed by AWRAD hold negative views of the United States.
On Nov. 8, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Gaza must be handed over to the P.A. following hostilities. The solution in “must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority,” stated Blinken.
During an Oct. 18 visit to Tel Aviv, U.S. President Joe Biden delivered a speech in which he claimed that “Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.”
AWRAD said that “the poll’s sample includes all socioeconomic groups, ensuring equal representation of adult men and women, and is proportionately distributed across the West Bank and Gaza.”
Whilst this comes as no great surprise to Israelis and pro-Israelis, it is supremely ironic that pro-Palestinian activists in the UK and elsewhere insist that their support is for the Palestinians and not Hamas.So, quite what conspiracy they will invent to explain all this away remains to be seen.