Pollster Khalil Shikaki sheds light on Palestinian attitudes : NPR

TEL AVIV – For the past three decades, Khalil Shikaki has provided vital glimpses and insights into Palestinian public opinion through his surveys conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, located in Ramallah, in the West Bank. These polls examine public opinion in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, focusing on three main issues: governance in Palestinian society, confidence in the two-state solution and Palestinians’ attitudes toward violent struggle against Israel.

Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last October, Shikaki has conducted three polls, each involving between 1,200 and 1,500 Palestinians. His pollsters interviewed between 480 and 750 Palestinians in Gaza and around 760 people in the West Bank.

The results from the latest survey, published on June 12, showed that more than 60% of Palestinians in Gaza reported losing family members in the current war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians. Two-thirds of respondents said they continue to support the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which militants killed 1,200 people and took at least 240 hostages, and 80% believe it put the Palestinian issue at the center of global attention.

About half of those responding to the survey in Gaza said they expected Hamas to win the war with Israel and return to rule the Gaza Strip, while a quarter said they expected Israel to win.

Shikaki, who was born in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces are currently operating, still has some family members in Gaza. “They are struggling like everybody else,” he told NPR from Ramallah last month.

In the June 12 poll, 40% of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza said they would prefer Hamas to govern them, followed by Fatah (20%), the Palestinian National Liberation Movement in control of the West Bank and led by Mahmoud Abbas. Eight percent chose others. Support for Hamas over the preceding three months increased by 6%.

Shikaki explains this significant support for Hamas despite the suffering caused by the war: “The support for Hamas comes from various sources, but the most important one is because Palestinians share Hamas’ values. They will support Hamas for that, even if Hamas makes wrong moves here or there.”

He explained that those values comprise three main elements: a high level of religious observance, no separation of faith and state and primacy of religious identity over national and ethnic identity. He said about one-third of people polled in Gaza share those values, and slightly fewer in the West Bank.

The second source of support, he says, “is the belief that Hamas stands for resistance, armed resistance to Israeli occupation, at a time when the majority of the Palestinians believe that the only way to end the Israeli occupation and allow the Palestinians to be free, independent and sovereign is the use of force.”

Here are some excerpts from Shikaki’s interview with NPR, which took place in late June.

What is the current attitude of Palestinians toward Americans and the Biden administration?

Shikaki: Extremely negative, because right now the lens that people are using to judge the administration is how it performs regarding the war in Gaza. A war in Gaza in the eyes of the Palestinians is nothing short of genocide, and the U.S. is supplying Israel with the arms to conduct a genocide. So the U.S. is essentially evil and the satisfaction with the U.S. role was zero, basically. It increased slightly, I think, to 3% in our current survey. The reason for that, in fact, has been the floating [aid] pier in the northern part of Gaza that hasn’t really been doing very well. Nonetheless, one-third of the Palestinians had a positive view of the U. S. efforts in facilitating humanitarian delivery of humanitarian services.

What are Palestinian attitudes toward the pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses?

We’ve not asked directly about that, but we’ve asked two things that are related that showed that the Palestinian public looks very positively at it. And in fact very optimistically about that. The first one is what was the most important outcome of October the 7th, and the second was what did October the 7th trigger in terms of the Palestinian interest?

Eighty percent of the public in the current survey basically say that making the Palestinian issue and resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is now becoming central to global interests. and so this is a very positive. It’s not just about the demonstrations and the pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but it’s about everything that is happening and the focus on trying to find a solution .

A view of Khan Younis in Gaza on July 24.

Anas Baba for NPR

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Anas Baba for NPR

According to your last surveys, about 90% or so of Palestinians do not believe that Hamas committed atrocities such as killing women and children or raping during the attack on Israel last Oct. 7. How do you explain that?

When we look at who thinks that and why they think the way they do, we basically found two groups. There are those who have seen no evidence of that. They have not seen videos, for example, that show atrocities committed by Hamas. That’s the largest majority of those who deny that Hamas did commit atrocities. But then there are those who actually saw the videos — and here we do find almost half of them believe that Hamas did commit atrocities.

However, we still have the other half of those who’ve seen the videos who don’t believe Hamas committed atrocities, and that’s because they think it’s all fabrication. This is war, and [they believe] Israel is using its propaganda machine to depict Hamas in a very negative color. And that is part of this.

Are you worried that the results of your polls might be used by Israeli politicians to convince Israelis that they should have no mercy toward Palestinians in Gaza because they support Hamas?

Yes, I worry very much about that. Not because this is what we’re finding, but because you will find people who will misuse the data to justify whatever they are doing …. First of all, the statement that the majority of the Palestinians support Hamas is totally wrong. The majority of the Palestinians oppose Hamas, not support Hamas. The support for Hamas among the Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank is 40% or less. That’s the amount of support, so 60% or so of the Palestinians do not support Hamas.

The second lie that some people spread is that the Palestinian support for October 7th is a support for massacre and atrocities that were committed in October. Our findings show the exact opposite. Those who think atrocities were committed on October the 7th do not support October the 7th and do not support Hamas.

And so the idea that the majority or vast majority supports Hamas or that it’s the vast majority that supports atrocities committed by Hamas are two fabrications, lies. Our findings definitely show that in fact, it’s the exact opposite of these two statements.

In 30 years of polling, since the Oslo Accords, what would you say is the biggest change that occurred in Palestinian society?

The three main issues that we have explored with the Palestinian public since Oslo are those that relate to state-building and the extent to which this was moving in the right direction. That is to create an authority that is efficient, free of corruption, perhaps democratic or at least with good governance. So this was one item and the expectations at that time were highly optimistic.

And looking at where we are today, we can see that there has been a sea change with the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians today believing that the entire process of state-building has been a total failure. The Palestinian national elite that was in charge of doing it has essentially failed miserably to deliver what they promised the Palestinians.

The second major change has to do with the support for the two-state solution. And here too, the picture is very dramatic. In 1993, all the way I would say up until the last 10 years, a majority continued to support the two-state solution. That majority at the time was 80% and it continued to decline gradually. It’s mainly due to the growing perception that this two-state solution was no longer feasible. Israeli settlements’ expansion has essentially made it impossible.

The third and most dramatic change has to do with the support for violence. I would say until the early 2000s, the support for violence was the view of the minority, 20%, maybe 25%. So the public was totally opposed to it. But most importantly, the public at that time was not only opposed to violence, but was very supportive of diplomacy and negotiations. You could easily find 70 to 80% of the Palestinians supporting diplomacy and negotiations. And you can easily find that those who believe that did not support violence at all. So there was absolutely zero overlap in terms of support for diplomacy and armed struggle or violence.

The change here has been dramatic today. The majority of Palestinians believe that violence or armed struggle is the most effective step for ending the Israeli occupation. Starting in 2015, we began to see a rise, but not a majority. The formation of the current Israeli government under Netanyahu early in 2023 made the difference. Even before Oct. 7, a majority of Palestinians in the West Bank was already supporting violence in a manner that we have not seen since 2005.

According  to your last polls, the most popular leader for the Palestinian people is not Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority, but Marwan Barghouti, who has been in an Israeli prison for more than 20 years for murdering Israeli citizens. He is a well-known supporter of the two-state solution. Can you explain this support for Barghouti? 

Barghouti was popular before Oct. 7. His popularity increased significantly after Oct. 7. There is absolutely no doubt about that. In the last 20 years, Barghouti has been the most popular Palestinian leader. Now, why is he popular? Most Palestinians, perhaps unfairly, think that [Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud] Abbas is a sellout, that he would accept conditions unacceptable to the Palestinians in search for a two-state solution. They don’t think Barghouti would do that. … they think Abbas is here to survive and to stay in power. And that he has no values, unlike Hamas.

The second reason for this popularity is that they think Barghouti stands for resistance. This is where Barghouti and Hamas are seen as one. They both stand for resistance. So, even though Barghouti supports a two-state solution, and wants to end the conflict and end the Israeli occupation in a peace treaty with Israel, living side by side in peace, security, and cooperation… at least the public perception of him is that this is not going to come without violence.

How do you keep your pollsters safe doing their job in Gaza during this war?

It is risky to exist in Gaza, but we do our best to ensure their safety by preventing them from entering areas of combat, such as the northern part of Gaza, for example. We don’t allow our data collectors to cross there in order to avoid a situation in which they risk their lives. And so, there is risk, always risk, but the risk that our data collectors are taking in Gaza today is the same risk that other Gazans are taking by staying in safe areas. And so our data collectors do exactly that: stay in safe areas, interview people who live in those safe areas. And so far we have not lost, any of our data collectors — killed or injured.