Amid slumping popularity, Hamas boycott call over elections suggests Israeli Gaza policy may be working
Cast your mind back to January of this year. Remember all those slogans and banners saying: “We are all Hamas now”? Remember all those BBC reports whose subtext was always that Operation Cast Lead could only succeed in stirring up the hornets’ nest? It’s the familiar narrative, of course: radicalisation is the product of oppression and occupation; the siege can only produce a siege mentality; Hamas can only benefit from Israel’s attempts to root them out. Talks not bombs are the solution.
Well, it doesn’t seem to have quite panned out that way. Hamas announced yesterday that it would forbid the people of Gaza from participating in elections announced for January in the Palestinian territories by Mahmoud Abbas. It seems that popular support for the Islamist terror group has collapsed since Cast Lead to the extent that Hamas would face a rout if elections were held any time soon. That doesn’t quite fit with the narrative, does it?
In reality, opinion polls (barely reported in the western media of course) have been showing for some time that ordinary Palestinians in the Gaza strip are somewhat less forgiving of Hamas than many of its western apologists.
As far back as February, a poll from the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion showed that support for Hamas in Gaza had fallen to 28 percent from 52 percent the previous November.
A poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center this month put support for Hamas at just 18.7 percent in the West Bank and Gaza compared with 40 percent for Fatah. Polling for Gaza alone put support for Hamas at 24 percent as against 43 percent for Fatah (see link below).
If the polls are accurate and if Hamas is as frightened of facing its electorate as it appears to be, this represents a pretty devastating blow to the critics of Israel’s Gaza policies.
Of course, no one but a fool would suggest that this all means Hamas is on the way out. It is quite capable of ruling without popular consent, and there is always the danger that it could trigger a new wave of attacks on Israel to deflect attention from its failings.
The point is, however, that we now have pretty convincing evidence that the Gaza campaign (and the ongoing sanctions regime) did not constitute the exercise in futility that western critics have been so quick to characterise it as.
The war against terror is a long war. There may be no such thing as a total victory. But sustained pressure can yield results.
I really wonder whether this interpretation is one you are likely to be hearing as you turn to the mainstream media for news and analysis in the weeks and months ahead. Care to place any bets?
To see the full breakdown of Palestinian opinion on a range of issues, see the second of the above mentioned polls here:
http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2009/69_oct_english.pdf
To purchase my recently published book on the broader subject, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/State-Beyond-Pale-Europes-Problem/dp/0297856642/ref=pd_sim_b_3
Tags: Israel
October 29th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Good luck in the Cambridge debate tonight Robin - opposing this motion:
“This House Believes that Israel Demands too Much and Gives too Little in the Peace Process”
October 29th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I haven’t read the report yet, but will do so. Khaled Abu Toameh has recently written that although Palestinians are unhappy with their guns-not-butter government, they also hate Fatah for its corruption and perceived capitulations to the USA, and that, as Palestians have no viable alternative to Fatah or Hamas, are still more likely to support Hamas because Hamas has yet to prove itself as corrupt and ready to roll over for the west as Fatah.
October 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Sorry, this is wrong. The BBC said Israel achieved nothing, therefore Israel achieved nothing.
Mailman
October 30th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
A very revealing response to the last question in the poll:
“Q19. Which Palestinian personality do you trust the most?”
Just under a third do not trust anyone!
October 31st, 2009 at 6:20 am
In the middle east the results of actions are always mixed . In terms of their rocket shooting, for now it is a relative success but there are many more less successful results [Goldstone for instance]. The Palestinians election problems are of their own doing and show that it may take another 60 years before they manage to pull themselves together.
October 31st, 2009 at 10:54 am
The rise of new fundmentalist movements in Gaza is, however, a very worrying development which is being conveniently ignored by the Western media.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256740789224&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
November 1st, 2009 at 3:43 am
Unfortunately, the results of Cast Lead prove once again that the only thing the Arabs understand is force. This does not sit well with western ideals, but it has been shown to be true over and over again, even when it is Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein putting down their own people, let alone Israel finally taking action against a hail of rockets.
But it was a Westerner who said that war is diplomacy by other means - and in the ME that is the truth of it.