The Vanishing Point

At the Hairpin Bend, Tarzan feels provoked (with good reason) by the political statements of the Rabbit Assud, on a Palestinian TV-show for Children. The show is sponsored by Hamas, and it is notorious for its blatantly anti-semitic rhetoric and general political hatespeech. This time, Denmark was the target of his anger, spurred by the reprinting of the Mohammed-cartoons. I replied to the post that a major problem with this show, apart from the obvious affinities brain-washing young children share with totalitarian systems, was that these attitudes were not an isolated phenomenon. Rather, anti-semitic sentiments and support for terrorist means of achieving political goals, seemed to be widely accepted among the palestinian population.

In support of my argument I referred to this survey conducted by Near East Consulting, which showed that support for Hamas and their violent means of achieving political goals, was considerable. Apart from that I referred to the fact that extremist organizations like Hamas easily can muster enormous masses at their nazi-like mob-rallies, and Tarzan also pointed to the trivial fact that a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas, who ran on a platform of eradicating Israel.

But then I accidentally came across this post by Raapil, that linked to a range of Gallup polls, painting a much milder picture: for starters, both Israelis and Palestinians are overwhelmingly for a peace-ful settlement, both groups were for non-violent means of getting there, and both groups were against the targeting of civilians in political conflicts (most interestingly, more Palestinians were against this than Israelis - kind of paradoxical then, that they still support Hamas that openly encourage suicide-bombings on anything that can walk and doesn’t bend down on a carpet six times a day, face against Mekka). So I became curious to what polls of Palestinian political attitudes reported in general. One of the most credible I could find was this poll from September 2006, conducted through a joint effort by the Harry S. Truman Reseach Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah (and published by the Council on Foreign Relations). Briefly stated, the most important results are that a large majority of Palestinians believe that Palestinians should emulate the methods of Hizbollah (that is, launching rockets into random civil neighborhoods) and a majority support armed attacks against civilians inside Israel. This doesn’t really correspond to the results of the Gallup poll, but this is a much older poll though, which could explain some of the difference - plus this poll has been sampled just in the wake of the war with Hizbollah in Lebanon. The error margin on this poll is about 3% though, on average. The good news are that a majority of Palestinians also believe that Hamas should recognize the existence of Israel if they get a peace-settlement in return, a vast majority support efforts to establish a cease-fire and that Hamas should negotiate with Israel. In general a large majority does not believe that military means alone can ensure any long-term solution, a political settlement is needed, preferably one including a Palestinian state.

Assessing general political views of entire populations is, as always, extremely complicated. The picture of Palestinian attitudes towards Israel remains quite muddled, but there does seem to be a consensus that at least Israel deserves to exist, among a majority. Apart from that a majority also want peace - whether terrorism and killing of civilians is a legitimate mean to achieve that, is an area where the polls contradict eachother - according to Gallup Palestinians are against targeting of civilians, according to the two other polls, they are for. Right now I am leaning towards the view that a majority supports the Hamas/Hizbollah way, but a majority also want a lasting peace that includes two sovereign states. The question then becomes how large and strong the minority seeking the total obliteration of Israel is…