She Polled Gazans on Oct. 6. Here’s What She Found.

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The day before Hamas’s horrific attacks in Israel, the Arab Barometer, one of the leading polling operations in the Arab world, was finishing up a survey of public opinion in Gaza. The result is a remarkable snapshot of how Gazans felt about Hamas and hoped the conflict with Israel would end. And what Gazans were thinking on Oct. 6 matters, now that they’re all living with the brutal consequences of what Hamas did on Oct. 7. So I invited on the show Amaney Jamal, the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a co-founder and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer, so she could walk me through the results. And, it’s a complicated picture. The people of Gaza, like any other population, have diverse beliefs. But one thing is clear: Hamas was not very popular. As Jamal and her co-author write: “The Hamas-led government may be uninterested in peace, but it is empirically wrong for Israeli political leaders to accuse all Gazans of the same.” Mentioned: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research Public Opinion Poll Washington Institute Poll Book Recommendations: The One State Reality edited by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley Arabs and Israelis by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Mark Tessler Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show. So I want to start today with the question I've been getting, which is why I've been treating agent here. To quote one email, all you can do is condemn the brutality of the bombing.
0:35.6	Well guess what? Do you want to stop the bombing?
0:37.8	Release the hostages now and maybe, maybe something will change.
0:42.7	You want fuel and electricity in Gaza?
0:45.3	Tell Hamas.
0:47.2	Or here's another email.
0:49.2	Are you planning an episode called, if not this, then what should Hamas have done?
0:53.2	After all you had an episode on what should Israel do.
0:56.5	It makes sense to take the exact perspective on Hamas.
0:59.4	I get where this is coming from. I really do. There would be no invasion of Gaza right now,
1:07.0	no massive air bombing campaign, no siege of food and water.
1:11.0	If Hamas hadn't butchered more than 1,400 people in Israel and
1:14.8	taken hundreds more hostage on October 7th. They did this. It should be on them
1:21.0	to end it. Gazi-H Hamad, a Hamas official, went on Lebanese television the other day,
1:26.5	and he said, quote,
1:27.5	we will do this again and again.
1:30.0	The Al-A-Loxa flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.
1:39.1	That is truly monstrous.
1:42.3	Israel is right. I've said this before,
1:45.2	to want to destroy Hamas or at least destroy the threat that it poses.
1:49.8	Every country in the world would want the same in its position.
1:54.3	But if you agree with what I just said,
	...

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