Ghaith al-Omari on What Palestinians Really Think about Hamas, Israel, War, and Peace

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this month, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released a poll of Palestinian attitudes—attitudes towards Israel, towards Hamas, towards the Palestinian Authority, about the Hamas attacks of October 7, about the conduct of the war since that time, and more.

The findings are eye-opening. Asked if the October 7 attacks were the right thing to do, in light of all that’s happened since, 72% of Palestinians think they were. A further 85% said that they have not seen the videos of the October 7 attacks, and the vast majority do not believe that Hamas committed the atrocities that the videos show. Meanwhile, 66% of Palestinian respondents do not support the idea of a two-state solution. Approximately the same number, 63% of Palestinian respondents, believes that armed struggle is the best means of achieving, in the words of the poll, “an end to the occupation and the building of an independent state.”

Ghaith al-Omari is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, and served as an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during the 1999–2001 permanent-status talks (in addition to holding various other positions within the Palestinian Authority). Here, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he breaks down some of this data and offers historical and political context for it.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Earlier this month, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released a poll
0:10.1	of Palestinian attitudes towards Israel, towards Hamas, towards the Palestinian Authority.
0:16.0	The poll asked respondents about the Hamas attacks of October 7th, the conduct of the war since that time,
0:22.6	and altogether it offers a snapshot glance into Palestinian opinion at this moment. The findings are
0:28.8	eye-opening, and they have forced idealists who wished that the world operated according to
0:33.7	their hopes to reckon with the world that is. We might like opinions to be otherwise,
0:38.3	but they are what they are. Here are some numbers. Asked if the October 7th attacks were the
0:43.4	right thing to do, in light of all that's happened since, 72% of Palestinians think that they were.
0:49.7	85% of the respondents say that they have not seen the videos of the October 7th attacks.
0:55.1	The vast majority do not believe that Hamas committed the atrocities that those videos show.
1:00.3	Only 10% of respondents believe that Hamas has committed war crimes in the current war,
1:05.4	and that figure can be derived from the fact that only 5% of West Bank respondents believe that it has, whereas 17% of
1:12.9	Ghazan respondents believe that Hamas has committed war crimes. As of December 2023, 66% of Palestinian
1:20.4	respondents do not support the idea of a two-state solution, that is, of an independent Palestinian
1:26.4	state alongside Israel.
1:28.6	Approximately the same number, 63% of Palestinian respondents believe that armed struggle
1:34.3	is the best means of achieving, in the words of the poll, an end to the occupation
1:39.2	and the building of an independent state. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
1:45.7	Today we're going to step a little more deeply inside this poll, and our guide will be the Rosalind
1:50.7	and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
1:56.6	Reith al-Omarie. He is the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine and served
2:02.2	as an advisor to the negotiating team during the 1999-2001 permanent status talks. He's also held
	...

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