Palestinian Support for Hamas Oct. 7 Attack Shows What They Share With Israel

A survey released last week by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed continued Palestinian support for the October 7 massacre and for Hamas.

The survey shows that eight months of bloodshed and destruction have done little to undercut the Palestinian backing for Hamas and its October 7 attacks.

• Like Israel, Hamas isn't offering Palestinians a 'day after' – just more war and suffering
• Palestinian arena swings between poles as prospect of 'day after' government looms
• Israel is hiding its draconian detention of Palestinians from the public

The numbers are only cause for despair among Israelis. They justify continuing the war against Hamas and heighten their desire for revenge. Those calling for "a total victory" and for "eliminating Hamas" can point to the survey's results and say, "we told you, there's no other way but to strike Gaza and its inhabitants hard."

But the Israelis aren't the only ones despaired. The figures point to the depth of Palestinian hopelessness in regard to a future diplomatic settlement with Israel, to the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The October 7 massacre and the war that followed didn't cause trust in them to decline. The hopelessness is the result of two decades of declining belief that a solution can be reached and in the PA's abilities. During these two decades, the Palestinians saw their dream of self-determination and establishing a state fading away, along with the international community's unwillingness to intervene in the conflict.

Dr. Khalil Shikaki, the center's director, stresses that many of those who express support for the October 7 attacks are not Hamas supporters. One reason for their approval, Shikaki says, is their belief that Hamas' atrocities succeeded in refocusing the world's attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Palestinians also expressed little confidence in the U.S. call for a "revitalized Palestinian Authority." While 90 percent of the respondents said they wanted PA President Mahmoud Abbas to step down, only 11 percent support the White House plan.

Thirty years after the Oslo Accords were signed, the PA has devolved into a complete failure. What's left is a system that only enables the continued occupation and apartheid, which presents no path to ending them. The PA's standing is so poor that even among those living in the devastated Gaza Strip, nearly half prefer Hamas to the PA in its current form.

The survey's results will make it easy for Israel to say that now isn't the time to talk about the "day after" in Gaza, and certainly not about the PA managing the Strip after the war.

The Netanyahu government never had an intention of doing that, and those who present themselves as an alternative to the prime minister can't talk about that option for fear of being labeled as left-wing and falling in the polls.

At the same time, the Palestinian factions, led by Fatah and Hamas, are showing no real interest in reaching an agreement between themselves and present a single "day after" plan of their own. The desire for power is no less strong in Gaza and Ramallah than in the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem.

As long as despair and fixed conceptions rule on both sides of the conflict, no new solution for the future of the region is possible. The despair and stubbornness will only deepen. The Israeli public will continue to see the Palestinians as monsters just waiting to devour the Jews, as happened on October 7. The Palestinians, on their hand, will continue to see the Jews as an invading force whose goal is to kill, dispossess, expel and rule forever.

All those who strive only for the end of the war and the return of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip without resolving the roots of the conflict should understand that they do nothing to change the current reality.

The role of the international community, led by the United States, is to devise a "day after" plan. It must be a plan whose vision for the Israeli public not only addresses how to end the present war but offers them a future for their children.

No less, it must be a vision that gives the Palestinian public a horizon and a chance to break out of the cycle of despair and destruction. America should not wait for the end of the war, at the rising price of continued death and destruction, and act now.