Earlier I reported on Khalil Shikaki’s most recent Palestinian public opinion survey, noting the increased support for Hamas and the decline in support for Fatah that it quantified. But I neglected to notice another important finding which one of my vociferous opponents has proffered as supposed proof of the undying perfidy of the Palestinians. The International Herald Tribune notes that for the first time ever in his polling, Shikaki finds tremendous support both for the most recent Palestinian terror attack against Merkaz HaRav and for Qassam rocket attacks against Israel.
…An overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men…an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks.
The survey also shows unprecedented support for the firing of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders.
The pollster who conducted the survey, Khalil Shikaki, said he was shocked because it showed greater support for violence than any of the surveys he had conducted over the past 15 years in the Palestinian areas. Never before, he said, had a majority favored an end to negotiations or the firing of rockets at Israel.
…According to the poll, conducted last week with 1,270 Palestinians in face-to-face interviews, 84 percent supported the March 6 attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva, one of the most prominent centers of religious Zionism in Israel and an ideological wellspring of the settler movement in the West Bank. Shikaki said that this was the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling.
On negotiations between Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel, and Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, 75 percent said they were without benefit and should be terminated. Regarding the thousands of rockets that have been launched at Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon, 64 percent support the attacks.
I agree with Shikaki that these findings are deeply disturbing. But are they surprising considering the context in which events have unfolded? I’m sorry to say, not really. Or as Shikaki notes:
His explanation for the shift, one widely reflected in the Palestinian media, is that recent actions by Israel, especially a series of attacks on Gaza that killed nearly 130 people, an undercover operation in Bethlehem that killed four militants, and the announced expansion of several West Bank settlements, has led to despair and rage among average Palestinians who want revenge.
“The anger that this poll is registering is about equal to that at the very height of the second intifada,” Shikaki said, referring to the years just after 2000 when suicide attacks on Israel and Israeli strikes on Palestinian forces reached new heights. “I am very worried about what is coming.”
In other words, mounting Israeli attacks against Palestinians, civilians as well as militants, have driven them to desperation. And when an entire people is driven to desperation that is when aberrant behavior rears its ugly head and becomes acceptable.
In commenting on the Merkaz HaRav attack and the anti-Arab pogrom in its aftermath, Gershom Gorenberg spoke most sagely:
The terrorist and the would-be lynch mob exist in a strange symbiosis. Hate feeds on hate and conjures up more hate.
In its own desperation to strangle Hamas and stifle the Qassam attacks, the IDF mounted a devastating series of attacks catalogued by Shikaki above. And in response to them, Palestinians have thrown up their hands and said: “what other choice do we have but to support the feeble means of resistance at our disposal?”
Those who oppose my views will point to the above as justification of Arab terror. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I do not support terror on either side of this conflict. But we must remember that hate doesn’t live in a vacuum and it doesn’t spring from nothing. As Gorenberg wrote, “hate feeds hate.” Those who point to these polling results as evidence that Palestinians are hateful and violent and not partners for peace should remember that Palestinian hate derives from Israeli hate. The solution isn’t to point fingers and claim that one side hates while the other is an innocent victim. Rather, it’s to break out of the blame game and get to “Yes.” That is, negotiations among all parties to the conflict including Hamas.
On a final and more hopeful note:
The poll did show support for a two-state solution over the long term, with 66 percent favoring normalized relations with Israel if it returned all land won in 1967 and a Palestinian state was established.
Either we get to “Yes” or we will reap the whirlwind and witness an even greater expansion of violence and terror.
Richard, I was hoping you would comment on this poll. However, I sense a lot of confusion here.
For example, you state “Palestinian hate derives from Israeli hate”. In other words, you are stating, the Palestinian NEVER hated the Jews here, there CURRENT hatred is only derived from a PRE-EXISTING Jewish hatred of Palestinians. In other words, during the whole period of Zionist settlement starting, say, in 1881, or 1918, the Palestinians welcomed the Jews with open arms, and then on encountering “Israeli hatred”, they started hating Israelis back. Am I correct?
Next, you say this currently existing “Palestinian hate” is due to Israeli military operations in Judea/Samaria/Gaza in response to terrorist activity and rocket fire. In other words, BEFORE Israel carried out these recent operations, there WASN’T Palestinian hate. But how then do you explain the Palestinian terrorist war starting in 2000 which led to over 1000 Israelis being murdered and thousands more wounded? This occurred in the wake of Barak’s offer to give almost all (but NOT ALL) of what the Palestinians are asking for, at least in the territorial and reparations realm. YES I KNOW THAT ROBERT MALLEY AND TONY KARON SAY THE PALESTINIANS WERE NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED, and as a result they let us murder and mayhem which is, presumably, UNDERSTANDABLE, since they wanted some more. But, as I said, this predates the current Israeli operations and so I don’t understand it. The Palestinian response to the then Israeli offer of peace is to kill? , Now they kill because they don’t like Israeli military operations and then they killed in order to improve their bargaining position. This contradicts your HATE BREEDS HATE THESIS. Violence on their part serves multiple uses, not just “understandable” revenge.
Okay, now let’s say, their hate is “understanable”, and that we should “understand” they point of view that ANY atrocity is legitimate for purposes of revenge and that even someone who sprays children with bullets (BTW this was not the first case of this, there was the Hatuel case in 2005 and others before) is a great hero in the eyes of the Palestinians. (Now, someone will yell BARUCH GOLDSTEIN but he is condement by 90% of the the settler population, not to mention Israeli population at large)
But if someone having grievances makes ANY reaction on their part, no matter how violent “understandable”, well then you have to admit it works in the other direction too,
Baruch Goldstein was just as much a “patriot” as the Mercaz HaRav killer, so was Yigal Amir. So should we be “understanding of their position”, too. The Germans had many grievances after World War I and many people in the US, Britain and France had “understanding” for their position, too, and most Germans felt “justified’ in doing what they did in the Second World War. After all, if all moral values can be thrown out because those who do this have “Justified anger”, then we are back in the law of the jungle.
Given that 80+% of Palestinians think spraying kids with bullets is a “noble, heroic act”, do you know think Israelis are MORE or LESS willing to “take risks” for peace? Why is someone like Martin Luther King or Gandhi honored for encouraging peaceful resistance if throwing out all moral restraints in favor of maximum violence and terror is “uhderstandable” and possibly more effective?
I am disturbed by the implicitly racist comparison between Palestinians and Germans in the comment by bar_kochba132.
The statement below is essentialist and primordialist.
It belongs to the mindset of Central and Eastern European politicized ethnic fundamentalism of which German Nazism is just one example.
As Haaretz points out in An Invention called “The Jewish People”, Eastern European ethnic Ashkenazim were not “returning” in any sense, and the native population had no obligation to welcome invaders committed to dispossessing it.
I addressed the attack on Yeshivat Merkaz haRav in Tohar haNeshek in Jerusalem Attack. Of all entries in my blog for Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel, this one received the most comments.
[ed. link removed per comment rules]
You should take a look at Martillo’s web page. Now I’m going to call him a classic jew baiting anti-semitic lunatic. But before you ban me again take a look at his web site.
Bar Kobha132 –
You could not have stated it any better. No matter what Richard will find a mitigating half or total justification. It is never that the Palestinian population is radicalized due to a culture that justifies, glorifies and teaches murder and hate. You’ll hear all the nonsense about Israeli or Western populations being no better than the Arab world or Palestinians as far as morals and teachings to kids… It is NEVER that only something Israel or the West did to them that caused it.
If they negotiate and it’s not enough –
If they don’t retaliate –
If they do retaliate –
If they knock off Hamas leaders –
IF they don’t knock off Hamas leaders –
If they release prisoners with blood on their hands –
If they don’t release –
You just wonder if someone follows this long enough do they ever tire of writing the moral equivalence or do the extremist left ever tire of reading it?
The murderer was glorified in Abbas’s newspaper note.
And the Goldstein comparison is a very apt one as well.
I wonder if Goldstein was in an Israeli revolving door prison with UN monitors would be ok with Mr. Silverstein if he got the treatment of a mafia don and sometimes for days at a time dissapeared. I wonder would the UN and Mr. Goldstein react the same way in such a case?
Or would we instead see “Murderer or Pogrom (A fave word of Silverstein to describe anything Israel does) commiter let go on furlough as Israel stands by?
The UN Sec Council would have a special session (of course the Human Rights Council) to condemn his temporary weekend furloughs… but when it happens to Palestinians the world yawns and then demands Israel release more murderers with blood on their hands…..
Perhaps, Mr. Silverstein would be for releasing Mr. Kuntar for a “cease fire” with Hezbollah in the future? And if Israel renegs we can read articles about how Israel “rejected a Peace Offer”…
Jeremiah
This is a sign of desperation by the Palestinains.
They KNOW that terrorist attacks, Kassem rockets or suicide bombings will not accomplish anything wortwhile politically. This is simply a people seething with rage at Israel.
NOT a good sign.
Am not optimistic about the peace process.
Bar Kochba: My intent was to refer only to the CURRENT cycle of violence beginning with the Gaza attack, the Merkaz HaRav shooting & the Jabel Mukaber pogrom. I am not talking about the entire history of Jewish-Arab relations. Whose hate came first historically? I don’t know & I don’t care. It’s something for ideologues or historians of the period to fight about.
Read Clayton Swisher or even Aaron David Miller’s new book about Camp David & then try to pass off as truth the error that Barak offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for. It’s simply historically false & propaganda foisted on the world by Barak to pass the blame to Arafat. You can believe Barak. I choose to believe American Jews who were there & know better.
Not what I said. Not what I believe. Say it again & I’ll call you a smearmongering liar.
Not just Baruch Goldstein, but there are endless Israeli killers who have attacked Palestinians. But not just the killers. There are the bullies who prevent Palestinians from farming their land. There are the thugs who beat up Palestinians whenever they get a chance. And don’t tell me that 90% of settlers reject such atrocious behavior. It’s more likely that 90% of settlers support such behavior or at least accept it tacitly w/o condemning it. It’s not enough to turn away from murder (which I’m not at all convinced the majority do). Setttlers ought to turn away from brutality, thuggery, land theft, etc. They don’t & they never will.
Whether or not you are willing to admit this you know that if the tables were turned and Palestinians Arabs were Israeli Jews and Israelis were Palestinians; if Israel was a small, weak non-state with no army to defend itself; if the Arab Palestine was a strong state seeking to dominate the Jews with its military power & occupying its land–you know that the Jews would respond almost precisely as the current Palestinians are responding. That doesn’t make either side right in justifying their use of terror against the “enemy.” Terror is wrong on both sides. But unlike you I see terror and blame on both sides.
Is that a proven fact or is Mr. Silverstein just privy to a higher power on that one?
Amazing, considering he just cited a poll that a vast majority support the brutal murder committed by a Palestinian who was then glorified by Hamas and Fatah in each’s news media… so again we are left with the hypocrisy of listening to him then half justify the reason for this attack while still ‘condemning it’… but yet showing us more intelligent understanding minds how it is in fact really Israel’s fault why the Palestinians support and cheer this attack as a culture….
“They don’t and they never will” again more privy info from his crystal magic ball.
Jeremiah: It’s too bad you have none of the compassion of your Biblical namesake who would blush at your racism. But before I go on read my comment rules very carefully. You have violated them egregiously. No one here gets to spout the racist nonsense you have above. If you want to do that go to the JPost talkbacks or Little Green Footballs. I treat anti-Zionists who preach hatred against Israel in the same way btw. Try this crap again & you’ll be banned outright.
As for your second comment (6:01 PM) I have no idea what most of it means & couldn’t follow it at all. As for the question above yes, I’d be in favor of releasing Kuntar in return for a verifiable, sustainable resolution of the conflict with Lebanon. So would many Israeli commentators who I have quoted here on precisely this subject.
So your argument is that settler murder, brutality & thuggery is justified by Palestinian terror? That’s certainly a morally tenable position isn’t it??? BTW, if someone condemns an act of terror it’s a contradition in terms to say he justifies the same act. But you wouldn’t be bothered by such niceties of rhetorical argument now would you.
Now listen to me carefully. You’ve just published three comments in this thread. You are done here. If you wish to comment on other threads you may. But I’ve heard all I can stomach fr. you here. Publish in the thread again (which you of course will do since people like you always do) & you’ll be taking an enforced vacation. Remember, I’m the baale bus & what I say goes here. Don’t like the rules don’t come to play.
Shikaki’s poll is indeed shocking; I was in Israel during the second intifada and find it horrifying that days like those might be ahead.
I am reminded of a saying by the American comic, “Moms” Mabley: “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” My fervent wish for both sides is that they notice that what they “always did” is not working, has never worked, and that it is time for a new idea.
Love that quote from Moms. Wise woman & well before her time. I remember her performances on the Ed Sullivan Show. I think the early Rosanne Barr was definitely influenced by Moms.
COMMENT FIXED –
No, I didn’t say that and that’s a very “cute” way of avoiding the question and casting aspersion, you seem adept at that?
I, in fact questioned how you know “settlers regularly brutalize Palestinians and will “”never stop”””… talk about a man claiming a thorwn about opinion as fact in what’s supposed to be a factual argument. Yet you call me a “racist” below for stating a fact, that this murderer and murder in the past has been lionized as it was in Fatah’s official PA newspaper.
You in the next sentence claim –
Yet in the next breath call me racist for stating a fact that the PA media glorifies murder and murderers… Is it not a FACT that Abbas’s Fatah media glorified this latest murderer? YES or NO?
Yet you apply a different standard to the Palestinians then you do in the same comment thread to the settlers who in your opinion as a GROUP are radicalized adn don’t do enough to condemn bullying… Above we have wanton murder justified by the PA official newspaper not to mention vast support for the murder..
Finally, answer the question, would you be in thus favor of releasing Mr. Goldstein or Pollard, as a good faith building measure to the “settlers” (let me be more precise and state the settlers from Hebron) as a “good faith” building measure to “stop bullying”?
Of course, let me state the obvious that Mr. Goldstein is in prison via the Israelis and is far from a “national hero” as this latest Palestinian murderer was treated.
Just asking a rationale questions since you are the one who is for releasing Mr. Kuntar to Hezbollah, a man who shattered the skull of a child in front of the parent and sibling just for fun.
Ah, just as I expected. Jeremiah hasn’t the least modicum of respect for this blog or me & so explicitly decides that he simply has to have another go at getting his ignorant views across. I was already beyond tired after 3 comments in this thread, now my eyes are glazing over. So I’ll provide you an enforced vacation. Why don’t you go back to the anti-Arab swamp fr. whence you came. I hear Little Green Footballs is looking for foot soldiers in the war against Palestinians.
You reall tickle my funny bone in a perverse sort of way. It’s not so “obvious” that Goldstein is in prison as he is actually dead, killed by those he tried to murder. He is memorialized as a hero in the cemetery where he is buried & his followers dance every yr. at Purim by his grave celebrating his legacy of hate. If your knowledge of this event is anything like yr overall knowledge of the entire conflict it’s piss poor pathetic.
As part of final status negotiations I’d be in favor of creating a S. African-style Truth & Reconciliation Commission before which Israels & Palestinians who’ve engaged in terror against civilians could appeal for clemency by detailing their crimes & asking for teshuva. Those who take advantage should be shown clemency. Those who don’t should not. Yigal Amir would never appeal for clemency I assure you as he is proud of what he’s done.
Nice try Richard. But for the wilfully ignorant, explanation and examination are the same as endorsement. Understanding is the route to resolution. Condemnation on it’s own is just a stick to brandish.
It is interesting to see the concerted efforts to re-interprete the aftermath of Goldteins act. The ‘joke’ on the streets at the time was; Sure, Goldstein is to blame……he could have easily got away and done the same at another 3 or 4 mosques.
Joachim: I have read yr post on the Yeshiva attack & find it an abomination to say that these boys were terrorists & therefore deserved their fate. No doubt they adhered to an extremist settler ideology but that doesn’t mean they deserved to die any more than Palestinians deserve to die in IDF attacks.