Recently, the Maan agency released a survey carried out by the Jerusalem Center for Media and Communications with support from the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The study was conducted in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, excluding Gaza Strip. The results showed that 39% of respondents believed that the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 was in line with their national interests, while 30% saw it as damaging those interests. Furthermore, 23% believed it was neutral.
In terms of the outcome of the war between Israel and Hamas, only 6% thought that Israel would win, while 41% believed Hamas would be victorious. Moreover, 34% thought neither side would emerge as winners. Additionally, 38% of respondents believed that the war would lead to improved relations between Israel and the Arab world, while 26% saw it as hindering normalization efforts and 30% did not believe there would be any impact on normalizing relations.
Interestingly, half (55%) of participants believed that Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians would increase as a result of the war. Twenty-seven percent saw no effect on the group’s popularity while only 13% believed its popularity would decrease. Furthermore, three-quarters (75%) of those surveyed were convinced that Iran and its allies would intervene to assist residents of Gaza while twenty percent did not believe they would do so.
When asked about achieving national aspirations and a Palestinian state, forty-four percent considered negotiations to be the most effective method while forty-one percent believed armed struggle was more successful. Lastly, thirty-two percent identified as supporters of two-state principle; twenty-five percent favored a single binational state; and thirty-one percent believed a Palestinian state should encompass entire territory “historical Palestine” between Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River.”
