We are often told, by Joe Biden and his minions among others, that Hamas doesn’t really represent Gaza. Hamas is a murderous, terrorist organization, but Gazans are innocent, put-upon civilians.
For example:
That is the party line, but those who saw video footage of delirious crowds of Gazans celebrating as Israeli captives and bodies were paraded through Gaza’s cities wondered how innocent those civilians actually are. These poll data, from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, reinforce that skepticism:
According to the survey, which sampled 1,580 Palestinian adults in early March, 71 percent of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank believe that the October 7 massacres in which in terrorists killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 253 others was “correct,” versus 72% who said so when the organization’s previous poll was published in December.
So the October 7 massacres have the overwhelming support of Palestinians, even after Gaza has begun to pay a price. Support for the massacres has actually risen in Gaza over the last three months.
When asked whom they want to see running Gaza after the war, the most popular answer, by a wide margin, is Hamas.
Hardly any Palestinians–5%–say that Hamas committed war crimes in the October 7 massacres. I think that is not because they don’t know what Gazans did, but rather because they think killing, raping and torturing Jews is A-OK and not, under any circumstances, a war crime.
Finally, most Palestinians think that Gaza will win its war with Israel:
That optimism is obviously not based on a conviction that Hamas will defeat the IDF in battle. Rather, Palestinians must think either that 1) the Israeli public will tire of the war and give in, or 2) the Biden administration will force Israel to lose. I think the latter alternative is more likely.
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