Opinion polls suggest Israeli policies against Gaza and Hamas have sharply reduced Palestinian support for extremists
If I had a penny for every time some know-nothing European bureaucrat or some shifty UN official has lambasted Israel for fomenting extremism among the Palestinians due to the blockade of Gaza, military interventions, targeted assassinations and the like I’d be a very rich man. Problem is, all the available evidence shows that Israel’s tough stance has worked wonders in making the Palestinians realise that there is nothing to be gained and much to lose by supporting extremists.
A poll out today in the Jerusalem Post shows not only that two-thirds of Palestinians oppose rocket attacks — they want the Hamas ceasefire with Israel renewed when it expires in September — but also that Hamas would get an absolute pasting if elections were held tomorrow. This is all terribly embarrassing to the bien pensants whose line of argument would mean that Hamas should now be registering polling figures somewhere up in the stratosphere and support for rocket attacks should be surging. Not a bit of it. The poll of 1,200 Palestinians, by Arab World for Research and Development, put support for the more moderate Fatah at 56 percent compared to 33.5 percent for Hamas.
This is by no means the first opinion poll to show such a decline in Hamas support since the Islamist terror group won the Palestinian elections in 2006 with 44 percent to Fatah’s 41 percent.
A poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research in June put Fatah support at 45 percent with just 26 percent opting for Hamas. That poll was conducted just after the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident and was identical in its results to a poll by the same group conducted in March. Again, therefore, we have evidence that “excessive” or “disproportionate” (as the EU would put it) Israeli policies have absolutely no effect in terms of “radicalising” Palestinians.
Indeed, restrictive Israeli policies against Gaza in recent years have coincided with a sharp decline in support for the radicals. Now, to coincide with something is not the same as to cause something. But what the opinion poll evidence does allow us to conclude is the following:
First, the core prevailing assumption that radicalism is a form of blow-back caused by Israeli policies is simply counter-factual: the available evidence refutes it, and does so conclusively.
Second, although there are too many factors going on at once to state the point as logically infallible, on the balance of probabilities the best available evidence suggests that Israeli policies in Gaza have been immensely successful in making support for extremism unattractive. The blockade, Cast Lead, targeted assassinations and so on have been a disaster for Hamas and a boon for their more moderate counterparts in Fatah.
What an appalling indictment of Western policy, therefore, that Barack Obama, the EU, Britain and company have now forced Israel to abandon the blockade and thus offer Hamas a public relations bonanza just at the time its fortunes were dwindling.
Appeasement is bad enough, but when the leaders of the Western world are actually colluding in the promotion of terrorism it can only be a matter of time before something goes badly wrong.
Tags: Israel
July 7th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
I really do hate to say this, but it has been proven over and over that the only language Arabs [governments and political movements] understand is the language of force. Negotiation, compromise, moderation are not part of the “religion of peace”, and as a result they perceive concessions as weakness.
July 7th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
A searing, judiciously argued indictment of the ‘conventional wisdom’ that dangerously prevails in foreign policy circles. Israel is part of the solution – not the problem. What are the odds of that formula catching on any time soon?
July 7th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Two points:
1. Since Arab radicalism can be traced back to at least 1929, when the Jewish community of Hebron was massacred, the argument that it is caused by Israeli persecution of Palestinians never made much sense.
2. The relatively high popularity of Fatah versus Hamas today would likely be even greater if Fatah didn’t suffer from a reputation for corruption.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
The bien pensants don’t have much time for facts or evidence. They just look into their own hearts and find the truth there. They just know.
July 8th, 2010 at 2:48 am
I would go further, all those people in the 1st sentence are basically racists. The do consider the Palestinians as never-to-be–able-to-mature-and-grow-up children, mindless idiots, two bit one dimensional robots. It’s clear that they do look down on them and take them for deranged or retards. It’s not the Israelis/conservatives/neo-cons/etc. who are the racists, they are! I’ve known this for half a decade.
July 8th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
radicalisation is a term used by islamist apologists to fool the bien pensants western believers in moral equivalence. Those nihilists who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge what they are told by so called islamic leaders time and time again -that a non muslim self determining state within lands deemed sacred and part of the Oumah, can never never be permitted to exist.And it is said everywhere in the ‘charters’ of hamas, fatah, the PLO and of course in all the sharia run countries that must agree because it is a basic tenet of islam.
this is of course what the BBC and the hordes of islamist apologists will never discuss or aimply talk about radicalists if only to further the impression that the rest are tolerant and peace loving.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
DID THE DIVISION AND SEMI DESTRUCTION OF GERMANY AFTER WW2 MADE IT INTO A MORE EXTREMIST COUNTRY OR THE OTHER WAY AROUND?DID NUKING JAPAN MADE IT INTO A REVANCHIST STATE OR A PACIFIST ONE?
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN!
MR.FRANKL YOU FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THEY ARE ANTI-JEWISH TOO.JEWS DONT HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS OF SELF DEFENSE AS EVERYBODY ELSE(PLEASE SPARE ME JEWS/ISRAELI DIFFERENTIATION).
July 8th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Other opinions revealed by the survey confirm the overall message that most Gazans now consider the Hamas regime to be a failure …
“The vast majority of Palestinians think creating jobs and fighting poverty is the most important issue facing Palestinians, with 75% saying the Palestinian economy is deteriorating.
The poll also showed that 67% of Palestinians think their society is headed in the wrong direction.”
The policies of the EU, the US and the UN, create a paradox by bolstering Hamas. The correct policy should be to encourage and assist the Gazans to get rid of Hamas, and when that’s done, give them the aid they need to rebuild.
July 9th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
These poll results mirror precisely what Robert Auman wrote recently about Game Theory. Once you refuse to give into being blackmailed into excepting outrageous demands and show your opponents that they have more to lose by being unreasonable, the other side will see reality.