Hamas Loses Popular Support for Not Shooting Rockets at Israel

If you’re looking for insight into the Palestinians’ mindset, a new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research offers some fascinating glimpses into their views on everything from killing Jews to fiscal responsibility.

The poll found “a significant decline” in Hamas’s popularity in the Gaza Strip and “a decrease in the positive evaluation” of Gaza’s Hamas government. Only 27% of Gazans said they would vote Hamas if elections were held today, down from 35% three months ago, while only 36% approved of the Hamas government’s performance, down from 41%. Sounds encouraging, right?

But here’s the kicker: The poll was taken immediately after Islamic Jihad’s recent rocket assault on Israel, and the pollsters said the drop in Hamas’s support was “probably due [partly] to Hamas’ behavior, standing on the sideline, during Gaza’s rocket war with Israel.” In other words, according to a leading Palestinian pollster, the way to win the Palestinian public’s affection is by indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli cities, and Hamas’s popularity suffered because it sat this round out. And we’re supposed to believe a Palestinian state would live in peace with Israel?

No less enlightening, however, were the questions about the Palestinian Authority’s financial crisis. The PA has a $1.1 billion hole in its $3.5 billion budget for 2012, mainly due to a drop in international donations. Yet when it tried to solve the problem with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts, a public outcry forced it to retreat. So the poll asked how Palestinians thought the problem should be solved.

It turns out that only a minority (38%) favor any kind of self-help measure: 9% back tax increases, while 29% support cutting expenditures by putting civil servants on early retirement. The majority, 52%, prefer “returning to negotiations with Israel in order to obtain greater international financial support.”

At first glance, this doesn’t seem all bad. True, it raises questions about Palestinians’ readiness to run their own state, since they clearly prefer living off international handouts to taking responsibility for their own budget. But at least they understand that the price of international support is talking with Israel, and favor doing so, right?

Well, not quite, the pollsters acknowledged: “It is worth noting that about half of those who favor return to negotiations oppose unconditional return that does not insure an Israeli settlement freeze and an acceptance of the 1967 borders.” So not only do the Palestinians want to continue living off international handouts, but they aren’t even willing to make any concessions in exchange for the money. Instead, they think Israel should pay for the privilege of having international donors fund them by making major concessions even before negotiations begin. And we’re supposed to believe a people this unwilling to take responsibility for itself is ready for statehood?

Finally, here’s a nugget for Westerners who extol the PA’s “democratic reforms” or Hamas’s “democratic election:” Only 22% of Gazans, and 30% of West Bankers, say they “can criticize the authorities” in their respective locales “without fear.” In short, far from being democratic, both halves of the Palestinian polity are classic “fear societies,” in which people dare not criticize their governments.

So to sum up, we have an undemocratic polity whose residents reward indiscriminate rocket fire on civilians and refuse to take any financial responsibility for themselves. And then people wonder why Israelis are leery about having a Palestinian state for a neighbor.