How do you make a hero of someone you hate? Well, if you’re Israel you do pretty much all the things they’ve been doing unsuccessfully to extirpate Hamas and the terrorist threat from Gaza. Haaretz reports a Palestinian poll of West Bank and Gaza residents that finds that the popularity of Ismail Haniya and Hamas has risen dramatically since Israel attacked Gaza several weeks ago and killed 130 Palestinians:
Israel Defense Forces attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip have boosted the popularity of the Islamist group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh among Palestinians in that territory and in the West Bank, according to a poll released Monday.
The survey by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that if new presidential elections were held, Haniyeh would receive 47 percent of the vote compared with 46 percent for President Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah faction. The figures represented a sharp strengthening of Haniyeh’s popularity. He served as prime minister in the Hamas-led government Abbas dismissed after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah in June.
But the survey also found that Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned in Israel and seen as a possible Abbas successor, would defeat Haniyeh by a clear margin. The poll gave him 57 percent of the vote, compared to Haniyeh’s 38 percent.
The center’s previous poll, in December, gave Gaza-based Haniyeh just 37 percent of a potential presidential vote compared with 56 percent for Abbas, whose peace efforts with Israel are opposed by Hamas.
The survey also noted that overall support for Fatah had declined and support for Hamas had risen slightly during this period:
The survey found that if new parliamentary elections were to take place, Hamas would receive 35 percent of the vote and Fatah 42 percent, compared to 46 percent for Fatah and 34 percent for Hamas in an opinion poll in January.
So there you have it. Instead of pre-empting Hamas or persuading Palestinians that Hamas has nothing to offer it, Israeli policy has done just the opposite. And it has done this not just in Gaza, which one might expect as it is a Hamas stronghold, but in the West Bank as well. If Israel keeps it up and continues to radicalize the population, Hamas will not only control the West Bank along with Gaza, we might eventually have Hezbollah or even Al Qaeda ruling the roost there. Then Israel will look back nostalgically on the days when they actually might have had an opportunity to negotiate with a responsible party (at least compared with Al Qaeda or Hezbollah) like Hamas. Do I hear “Iraq” anyone and the failed U.S. policy against insurgents there?
You had me until the part about “we might even have Hezbollah or Al Qaeda ruling the roost.”
What does that mean? What’s the connection?
The reason for the change in popularity has more to do with the fact that Abbas re-established a dialogue with Olmert. Most Palestinians reject peace with Israel because they are not willing to make the necessary concessions for peace, particularly recognizing Israel and giving up on the right of return (that’s why they elected Hamas in the first place). If Israel started negotiating with Hamas, the Islamic Jihad would become the dominant political force in the Palestinian territories.
Or to follow up on Amir’s point: Hamas are unwilling to make the concessions that make Palestinians under permanent submission to Israelis. Palestinians have shown that they are more than willing to concede in order to be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the West but what strikes me as rather naive about Amir’s comment is the fact that recognising Israel and giving up the right of return are prerequisites for peace when implementing the latter and a de facto recognition of the former is more than applicable for justice to prevail, and not the “peace” that Israel would want Palestinians to accept. If Israel started negotiating with Hamas, it would be a step towards something tangible instead of the failed policies of the past that only make the “moderates” weak and the “radicals” stronger with more of a popular base to reach out to. Israel only plays into the hands of the radicals who have been adamant that Palestinians will not gain anything by engaging with the occupier and coloniser, and after sixty years of being refugees and looking at the West Bank as it is today, it is getting tougher and tougher to disprove them. One way to do it is to make the necessary “concessions” of East Jerusalem, settlements, the wall and the right of return or even negotiating with Hamas. If Israel chooses to wait them out, it will ultimately lead to more violence and then perhaps the demise of Israel as we know it today.
I can’t begin to unravel the errors in this passage. First most Palestinians do NOT reject peace with Israel. It’s a fact confirmed by numerous public opinion polls. Apparently it is too inconvenient to his prejudices for Amir to acknowledge this. Second, it is the Israeli public (esp. politicians) unwilling to make the compromises necessary for peace. Palestinians have come much farther in accepting such compromises. Including the fact that most have given up the idea of demanding a full, physical right of return. Third, they didn’t elect Hamas because of its stance on the Right of Return. They elected Hamas because Fatah are a bunch of corrupt thugs & Hamas seemed to be less corrupt & more competent at governing. Islamic Jihad has a miniscule following within Palestinian society & could never take Hamas’ place.
Judy: I meant that Hezbollah & Al Qaeda, both of which have been variously rumored to be attempting to insinuate themselves into Palestinian politics, are more radical & less compromising than Hamas & would therefore be more dangerous & threatening to Israel than Hamas.
Joshua: I couldn’t agree more.
the poll asked the wrong question; haniyeh hasnt been running much of anything since the “coup.” It’s zahar who’s running the show. the poll would tell us more if it was about the choice between who’s really in charge, and abbas.