[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

Post Reply New Topic

I am just systematically going through the proper way of presenting information as this topic is a minefield.

While it is acceptable to attack and debate beliefs (political, religious etc) it is not acceptable to make generalised attacks on the adherents of those beliefs. It is acceptable to say that Republicanism, Liberalism, Christianity, Islam are stupid but not acceptable to make generalised attacks saying that Republicans, Liberals, Christians or Muslims are morons. You could say that some of these people are stupid because of (reason) but not make generalised attacks on groups of people. Similarly you could not say "Christians are morons" or "Muslims are terrorists" or "People on welfare are bums". Confine your attacks to the beliefs and politics, not the people holding them. The one exception to this is public figures themselves – by the very nature of their roles they are personally open to criticism.

I'd love to meet up with Palestinians who could dispel my belief that you can remove a non-HAMAS Palestinian from Gaza, but you cannot remove HAMAS sympathizing from the Palestinian.

Don't believe it... I saw too much glee after October 7th, from people who no longer lived there, to ever believe that it wasn't espoused by the people who still do.

But speaking about the relationship between the Palestinian authority, HAMAS and the Palestinian people in relation to Oct 7 in the same sentence is fraught with tripwires.

An Israeli strike killed two journalists working for a Lebanese TV channel and a third person near the border with Israel on Tuesday, Lebanese state media and the channel, Al Mayadeen, said.

The deaths add to a toll of more than 50 journalists killed covering the war between Israel and Hamas and its spillover to other parts of the region since Oct. 7, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

After Hamas’ devastating October 7 massacre in which some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, the globe was divided into people able to condemn the attack and people perceiving the terrorists as "freedom fighters."

Palestinian society seems much less divided on the issue compared to the rest of the world, according to a November 14 poll by the Arab World for Research and Development. When asked the leading question “How much do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 7?” Palestinian responses showed support for the attack.

Palestinians living in the West Bank overwhelmingly answered that they supported the attack to either an extreme or “somewhat” extent (83.1%.) Only 6.9% answered that they were “extremely” or “somewhat” against the attack, and 8.4% expressed that they had no opinion either way.

Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip show a little less consensus but the overall majority supported the attack. A mass of 63.6% said that they supported the attack “extremely” or to a “somewhat” extent. A further 14.4% answered that they did not oppose or support the attack. Showing a greater rift than that of the West Bank, 20.9% of Palestinians living in Gaza opposed the attack to some degree.

Very few differences were found in the beliefs between Palestinian women and Palestinian men when it came to supporting the October 7 attack.

‘In your opinion, what was the main reason for the operation launched by the Palestinian resistance on 7th October?’
When asked the above question, 31.7% of West Bank-based respondents and 24.9% of Gaza-based respondents claimed the reason for the attack was to “free Palestine.” A further 23.3% of West Bank-based respondents and 17.7% of Gaza-based respondents claimed that the reason for the attack was “breaking the siege on the Gaza Strip.”

An additional 35% of total respondents claimed that the attack was to “stop the violations of Aqsa”, assumed to refer to the Al-Aqsa mosque where only Muslims are permitted to pray at the site, despite its religious significance for all Abrahamic faiths.

Only 0.9% of total respondents believed that Hamas’ motive behind the attack was to “stop the peace process.” A further 0.7% said that they believed the motivation was to “stop the settlement.”
A total of 5.1% of respondents believed that the attack was carried out to “serve Iran’s benefits.”

Support for a two-state solution
When asked “Do you support the solution of establishing one state or two states?” the majority (74.7%) of respondents answered that they support a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”

The support for a single Palestinian state was more commonly held by Palestinians living in the West Bank (77.7%) than Palestinians living in Gaza (70.4%.)

A total of 17.2% of respondents said they supported a two-state solution, with Palestinians in Gaza (22.7%) supporting this solution to a greater extent than Palestinians living in the West Bank (13.3%.)

Only 5.4% of respondents said they would support a “one-state for two peoples” solution

Who is the fight between?
While the war is said to be between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization, only 18.6% of respondents have agreed that is the case. The majority (63.6%) feel this is a war between “Israel and Palestinians in general” with a further 9.4% stating that they saw this as a war between “the Western world and the Arab world.”

New opinion polls just released from Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University's Peace Index indicate that Israeli attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more hawkish than at any point in recent memory.

Both surveys were conducted in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre and the resulting war with Hamas, and sampled approximately 600 people each. The polls are part of a series conducted several times per year and attempt to be representative of the various factions of Israeli society, including Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent.

Despite thousands of protesters gathering in Tel Aviv to demand the release of the hostages held by Hamas, only 10% of Israeli Jews in the Israel Democracy Institute poll said they would support a pause in fighting in order to exchange hostages. Meanwhile, 44.3%, the plurality of Israeli Jews, said they want the government to negotiate for the hostages immediately without pausing the fighting.

Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow at Chatham House who specializes in writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, says that while many Israelis want the hostages returned home, they are also worried that releasing Palestinian prisoners will lead to more attacks like the one perpetrated on Oct. 7.

“There is a view that in the past… Israel released more than a 1,000 prisoners for one soldier, including the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and look what happened,” says Mekelberg.

Of Israelis who responded to the Israel Democracy Institute poll, 26.6% said that Israel should not negotiate with Hamas for the release of the Israeli hostages at all.

Nimrod Rosler, the academic head of Tel Aviv University’s International Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, which conducts the Peace Index survey, says that the impact of recent events has significantly shaped public opinion on the peace process. Support for peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority among Israeli Jews fell from 47.6% in favor in September to just 24.5% in favor in the survey conducted between Oct. 23 and Oct. 28.

“Since 2001, this is the lowest percentage we've ever gotten. And that includes during the second Palestinian intifada, during which there were large terrorist attacks against Israel, and other wars that occurred with Gaza and with Lebanon," he said.

Mekelberg says that this is because many Israelis felt that the Palestinian Authority did not condemn the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks strongly enough, and attempts to explain the context came across as justification to many Israelis. “There was a feeling that even though they did offer a condemnation, there was too much ‘but’ and trying to explain.”

Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza, 36.6% said the IDF was using an appropriate amount of firepower, while just 1.8% said they believed the IDF was using too much fire power, while 4.2% said they weren’t sure whether it was using too much or too little firepower.

On the Israeli Voice Index conducted on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, Israelis also expressed dissatisfaction with the Netanyau administration, with 61.4% of all Israelis giving Netanyahu’s performance during the war a negative rating. On the Peace Index poll, Netanyahu did even worse, with 75.8% of Israelis rating the prime minister’s performance as “not so good” or “poor” in regards to the war. Nevertheless, despite the distrust in Netanyahu, trust in the IDF remains high.

This is very critical, the fact that Netanyahu’s electoral base is being eroded since the beginning of the war,” says Tamar Hermann, a senior fellow at Israel Democracy Institute. “A significant number of people who think of themselves as on the right or say that they voted for the Likud [Netanyahu's party] are now very critical of Netanyahu and his government functioning.”

Support for a two-state solution also went down slightly among Jewish Israelis, dropping from 37.5% in favor of a two-state solution in September to 28.6% supporting the idea in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, according to the Peace Index polls. Among Arab citizens of Israel, support for a two-state solution was roughly the same, going from 68.7% being in favor to 71.9% being in favor after the attacks.

Mekelberg says that Arab citizens of Israel are much more in favor of both two-state and one-state solutions, since they are directly affected by inequalities baked into the current system. The average Jewish Israeli household's income is nearly double than that of the average Arab-Israeli household.


Mekelberg says that Arab citizens of Israel are much more in favor of both two-state and one-state solutions, since they are directly affected by inequalities baked into the current system. The average Jewish Israeli household's income is nearly double than that of the average Arab-Israeli household. “While they are both citizens of the same country, they have a very different existence,” says Mekelberg. “Both a one-state and a two-state solution give the possibility for them to become equal.”

Perhaps the most surprising finding from the surveys is that Israelis as a whole are more hopeful about their future now than they were before Oct. 7. In response to the Israel Democracy Institute poll, 64% of Israelis said they were “optimistic” or “somewhat optimistic” about the future of the country. Hermann says that the attack created a sense of unity among the Israeli public that was absent during the democracy protests earlier this year. “In the first part of 2023, the national consensus was totally shattered. Now that the electoral consensus is strengthened, it feels better for people to be part of a collective that shares both a common destiny and the war effort.”

Nevertheless, she warns that the feeling of consensus may be temporary. “Contrary to the gut feeling of many Israelis now … the discrepancies between left and right were very visible [in our data],” says Hermann. “When we ask them about preferences during the war or for the future we still see a significant difference between the political orientations, which means when the war is over, we are very likely to see them coming up to the surface once again.”

Mekelberg also warns not to over rely on polls taken during wartime. “The risk of running these surveys during war is that emotions run very high,” he says. “When it’s all settled, the answers might be different.”

While you never say never in politics any hope for a two state solution never mind a one mixed state solution is a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza want what they want and by enlarge support using violence to get it if the survey is remotely accurate.

According to one survey that was conducted just days before the 2023 war broke out, about 44% of respondents said they had no trust in Hamas, while 29% said they have a "great deal" of trust. That poll by Arab Barometer, in partnership with West Bank-based independent think tank, Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) included 790 people in the West Bank and 399 people in Gaza, roughly one-quarter of whom said they would vote for Haniyeh in a hypothetical, future election. Additionally, most people who answered the survey (73%) said they did not share Hamas' goal of eliminating Israel.

According to the latest Washington Institute polling, conducted in July 2023, Hamas’s decision to break the ceasefire was not a popular move. While the majority of Gazans (65%) did think it likely that there would be “a large military conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” this year, a similar percentage (62%) supported Hamas maintaining a ceasefire with Israel. Moreover, half (50%) agreed with the following proposal: “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.”

- Only 28% support the two-state solution
- 53% support a return to an armed intifada, 47% support waging peaceful resistance, and 26% support a one-state solution
- 52% believe that armed action is the best way to end occupation

Given the slaughtering that's happening in Gaza right now, I wouldn't expect many Palestinian citizens to be especially fond of Israel at the moment, not that they were before due to ongoing oppression. (None of that excuses the terrorist attacks by any means.)

Terrorists commit atrocities , Australian psychologist Dr C Dad postulates it stems from very deep hatred as opposed to deep hatred shown by the likes of Al Qaeda.