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A
Dan I'm Dan Kurtzphelin and this is the Foreign affairs interview.
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What we know from this conflict, from the get go, is violence only breeds more violence. If violence was going to solve this conflict, it would have been solved by now, a long time ago.
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A
As the war in Gaza continues, the question of Hamas future has become paramount. But it has also raised questions about the past years of Hamas's rule in Gaza and especially its support among Palestinians. Amine Jamal is dean of the Princeton School of Public and International affairs and co founder of Arab Barometer, which conducts public opinion research across the Arab world. Her most recent survey of Palestinian public opinion wrapped up on October 6, the eve of Hamas's attack. As she wrote in a recent piece for Foreign affairs, the argument that the entire population of Gaza can be held responsible for Hamas's actions is quickly discredited when one looks at the facts. Emini, thank you so much for joining me today and for the fascinating and really revelatory piece that you wrote for Foreign Affairs a few weeks ago.
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B
Thank you so much, Dan. It's a real pleasure to be with you.
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A
So let's start with the really astonishing polling your team at Arab Barometer was doing in the west bank in Gaza, really up until literally the eve of hamas attacks on October 7. What were you looking for and what did you find regarding Palestinian views of Hamas, especially among those who live in Gaza?
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B
Typically, you know, the Arab Barometer surveys tap into the attitudes of ordinary citizens across the Arab world in terms of social life, economic life, and political life. And one of the set of political questions we ask are levels of trust and confidence in the existing regime. And if they are to vote, who will they vote for? So when we asked respondents how much trust they had in the Hamas regime, about 67% said they had no or little trust in the Hamas government. So that's two thirds of the Palestinian population on Gaza saying they had little to no trust in Hamas. Furthermore, when we asked respondents, if elections were held today, who would you vote for? And About a quarter, 24% said they would vote for Hismail Haniyeh. So just looking at those two metrics leads us to believe that Hamas enjoyed very little support at the eve of this catastrophe that we're witnessing. And Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, also enjoyed very little support.
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A
You've been doing this kind of polling for many years. Is this in line with what you've seen in the past? Is there a kind of clear trend in terms of support for Hamas in Gaza and among Palestinians in the west bank as well.
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B
Yeah. So what we've seen, Dan, is across the board, Palestinian confidence in the existing regimes, whether it's the Palestinian Authority on the west bank or the Hamas government on Gaza, has been declining. And why has it been declining, especially since the COVID pandemic? Because, of course, we've seen all these new economic realities, whether it's inflation, cost of living, food shortages, labor shortages. And still in Gaza and the west bank, you have an abundance of unskilled labor available to sort of service these economies, and you've seen the cost of living rise. So on the eve of these surveys, what we saw in Gaza is 3/4 of the Gazan population were reporting that they could not afford to buy food in the previous 30 days or that they ran out of food and they couldn't afford to buy food in the last 30 days. So that basically tells you that three fourths of the Gaza population before all this devastation were reporting food insecurity. And that percentage is up since 2021. When we surveyed Palestinians in Gaza then, only 51%. Still half the population reported food insecurity. Today, it's 3, 4. So there's tremendous poverty on top of it, a lack of faith in the existing government. There's a similar story on the west bank, although there, the economic situation is not as dire, but nevertheless, the PA has gradually, over time, lost the trust and confidence of the Palestinian population because of public mismanagement of funds, corruption, abuse of power. But also important to note, Dan, on the PA side, remember, the PA was a creation that came out of Oslo. And that whole project of the Palestinian Authority was that it would work with Israel to manage and control and oversee areas A and somewhat B of the west bank in return for a future Palestinian state. Well, now they've become this really governing authority, this security authority. And even we see, like, even with these protests on the west bank today, the Palestinian Authority is also trying to push back or at least control many of these protests. So the PA is seen by many Palestinians as a security arm and even worse, a security arm of the Israeli occupation. Without ever delivering real peace, is there
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A
any sense of a viable political alternative, some other path, if neither the PA or the Hamas leadership in Gaza is seen as particularly successful or effective.
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B
Right. Well, so this is a really good question, Dan. So it sort of like, relates to this question of, well, what's going to come after all of this? Like, what is the governing authority going to look like? And, you know, we still don't know exactly that question. A lot of it's going to be contingent on how all this ends. But let's just assume for a moment that Hamas is completely eradicated. It does raise the question of whether Fatah and or some combination of the PA can govern over Gaza. My sort of sense of having studied this conflict now for over two decades is that if you want a Palestinian Authority and a Fatah government or a technocratic government simply to come back to Gaza and be told by Israel and the international community, please govern your people, control them, be an extension of this Israeli occupation on Gaza, that that's going to be a failed project. I mean, we are also hearing stories, Dan, right now on the west bank that there are splinters or emerging splinters from within the ranks of the pa. There's a lot of frustration. So you might think that that might be the most obvious route, but if that's not linked to a concrete plan, that's going to go somewhere. And what do I mean by where it's going to go? Go towards a genuine two state solution. Israel is going to find itself over and over trying to patch up the west bank in Gaza. Unless we see ethnic cleansing of Gaza right now, you're going to just try to patch this up with any government that can repress the people. And then every now and then we're going to see this boiling up happen over again. We've seen it over and over almost every three to five years. Dan. There's a cycle of violence here and the big elephant in the room has never been addressed. And peace work is difficult work. It's not basically a sound bite that people should say on camera that we call for a two state solution, we hope for a two state solution, we advocate for a two state solution. While the realities on the ground of the west bank have changed, as you know. But also just playing lip service to this cause without doing the work is not going to suffice. So either the international community as it sort of thinks about what governance is going to look like in Gaza, it needs to equally be worried about and concerned about and be planning for what is the solution to this conflict? What does peace look like? How do we get there as an international order?
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What is your sense of the level of support among Palestinians for a two state solution versus other kinds of binational state or other solutions? And is there still a sense of that, again, going back to October 6th, when you were doing these surveys, that there was still faith that that was possible despite all that has happened in recent years?
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B
So there are two questions here, right? One is what is Your preferred solution for the ongoing Palestinian Israeli conflict. The other question is relatedly, do you believe that a peaceful solution is still possible? So let's answer that first question. The first question is we asked Palestinians in Gaza, among these three options, which one do you think is the most viable solution? First was a two state solution, the second was one state solution, and the third was a confederate state. We also allowed for a fourth option which was other, where people could write in their responses. What we found in our survey is about 80% selected one of those three options which more or less basically is considered as recognizing Israel or dealing with Israel. But the vast majority of those who responded cited the two state solution. Around 52, 54% cited the two state solution. About 20% wrote in other and they cited armed struggle, armed resistance against Israel. So that's one in five. But nevertheless, the majority cited a two state solution. When you look at other surveys, we did not ask this on the Arab barometer survey. But when we look at other surveys, what's clear also is that when you ask Palestinians on Gaza and in the west bank, is a two state solution still viable? The majority of Palestinians believe that it is no longer viable due to the realities on the ground. And what do we mean by the realities on the ground? The expansion of settlements into the west bank that basically has not allowed for not only a contiguous Palestinian state, but the west bank today is divided up in enclaves in such a way that it's not clear how you can even organize a state.
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A
So you, in one of your previous answers mentioned this declared objective of destroying Hamas. It's hard to kind of understand exactly what the Israeli theory of success there is, given what is happening now, do you see that as remotely viable and just going to the public opinion and support dimension of this? Have previous conflicts, previous rounds of fighting, affected support for Hamas among Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. And what do you expect given just the sheer number of civilian casualties and all the images of horror and experience of atrocity that we're going to see in the the weeks ahead and have seen in the past weeks?
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B
I'm just gonna start out by saying, like what we know from this conflict from the get go is violence only breeds more violence. If violence was going to solve this conflict, it would have been solved by now, a long time ago. So regardless of what is happening in Gaza right now, there will be and must be a diplomatic solution and diplomatic negotiations not only to release the hostages, which is a little bit surprising that we're not seeing more diplomatic efforts to get that done. But also to stop the bombing on condensed civilian areas where, you know, today the death toll is upwards of 11,500. At some point the world community is going to say enough is enough. And we're still waiting to hear how much seriously, has Hamas been weakened by all of this. So violence is going to breed more violence. We also know this from our previous polling. When there are these cycles of violence, support for Hamas increases. I'm not entirely sure how that's gonna play out now, given the devastation, given the fact that about 1.5 million people have been displaced. I'm really quite honest with you, Dan. I'm not sure if at some point that Rafah border is gonna be open and you're gonna see just displacement given the sheer atrocities right now on the ground. So it really depends on what happens now. It's very critical. So let's just think about the day after for a moment. Some people are saying that maybe Hamas will be weakened, it's not going to be eradicated. Some will argue that eradication policies hardly ever succeed. Others have argued, look, let's learn from what happened in Iraq. When we went into Iraq, there was this very robust debate happening in D.C. amongst the White House and the State Department about whether or not the entire Ba'ath regime, Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath regime, should be pulled down and basically eradicated. But if you look at theories of state development, state formation, the number one thing that you need for any governing authority is you need a government to be able to have the means of control over its population. So the debate that ensued during that time period was that, well, if we pull down the entire government, there's going to be a political vacuum and chaos will ensue. And the other argument was no, you have sort of mid level Ba'ath career folks and lower level Ba'ath career folks. Let's pull them out and make sure that they become part of the ruling coalition in Iraq. The decision was not to do that. The decision was to take out the whole regime. And everybody saw what ensued afterwards. Now we're looking at Gaza. So one argument that you're seeing floating around in D.C. is there should be a diplomatic effort to pull out mid level and lower level elements of Hamas insofar as they sort of denounce terrorism and are willing to work with a new governing authority simply for having an aura of legitimacy in Gaza. The other argument is there's going to be a complete bypassing of Hamas and Fatah and maybe the PA will come back. Regardless of whichever option happens, a governing Authority also has to deliver to its people its aspirations. It can't simply be an authority that represses his own people. So that's what we have to keep in mind moving forward.
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We'll be back after a short break.
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A
Let's get to some of those day after questions that you raised, even acknowledging that we have no idea how long and terrible the day itself will be. But you mentioned some of the proposals that have been floated, including by senior members of the US Government about kind of extending authority of a reconstituted Palestinian Authority over Gaza. Salam Fayyad, the former PA prime minister, wrote a version of this in our pages, laying out a way of doing this. Do you see any successful formula there? I mean, what might be a viable approach to that that could in fact have some legitimacy among Palestinians underlying support
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for the PA or support for Hamas? What we know is that that support moves and is very malleable as a function of what's happening in the context of Israel in the peace process. When that peace process stalls and settlements are expanding and the Israeli government is dismissing the Palestinian Authority, guess what? Support for the PA drops. So let's fast forward in the day after. If the PA is the option, simply telling the Palestinian people, here's Gaza, here's a governing authority and nothing will change. To win support and legitimate any government, any government in Gaza, you have to give Gazans hope. You have to give Gazans hope for a better future. And a better future is going to be linked to peaceful resolution where you don't have to have all 2.5 million people basically more or less confined to what's often referred to as an open air prison and really give them the ability to flourish, to have a state where you can develop economically, where you can make sure your educational institutions are meeting economic demands. All of these issues require a level of coordination that are Just not happening under the conditions of where Gazans are today.
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So to return to that question of the two state solution that you eloquently raised earlier, I think if you look at this from the US Government's perspective, you have a lot of members of this administration certainly who are kind of notionally supporters of a peace process and a two state solution, but have become despondent about the ability of US Policy to move the situation that direction. And if President Joe Biden asked you to advise him on the best approach for the US to get us back on a better course, what should be done?
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B
Yeah, no, that's a great question, Dan. I would really say to Joe Biden, you need to talk the talk and you have to walk the walk. It's not simply that, you know, the two state solution is hiding out somewhere and if we call for it, it's going to appear and say, oh, here I am. You know, you have to do the work. And the work means you have to bring the Israelis and the Palestinians to the table and ensure that they're willing to negotiate and make compromises. Territorial compromises on the west bank are going to be very essential to this. The settler expansion project has to be questioned and has to be put on the table. We have a ruling coalition in Israel that basically wants to take over the entire west bank and is sort of openly calling for the displacement not only of Palestinians on Gaza, but the Palestinians on the West Bank. We're not even talking about a two state solution. With the existing sort of realities in Israel with the ruling coalition, there's real concern that ethnic displacement is probably part of the project. The other thing is when you think about the Abrahamic Accords, the Abrahamic Accords were aimed to establish bilateral relationships between Israel and many other Arab countries. The way these accords were perceived, these were perceived as means of isolating the Palestinians and leaving them out of the equation. Those countries that are willing and wanting to have peace with Israel, whether it's Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, they should be part of a negotiating coalition as well. And there has to be from the get go, a tentative goal that the parties have to work towards. For too often, even in the peace process, it was like, let's put the Palestinians and Israelis in a room and let them figure it out. We need to recognize as an international order, we need to recognize that there are power differentials between the Israelis and the Palestinians. And holding the PA accountable will require international coordination and cooperation.
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A
You mentioned the Abraham Accords and the process of normalization especially between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that seemed to be underway leading up to October 7th. You know, part of the objective by Hamas operatives was to put a stop to that process. One assumption that was driving policymakers, certainly in Israel, but you would even hear this from US Officials occasionally, is that Arab governments no longer particularly cared about the Palestinian issue. You've done polling on this over many years. What was the level of support for Palestinians among Arab publics? And had that, in fact, changed in meaningful ways?
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B
That's a great point. And you started to hear this discourse, right? It was Almost in Washington, D.C. and in other quarters of the world, whether in Europe, elsewhere, is that, you know, the Arab world is sick and tired of the Palestinian issue. They want to move on. They want bilateral relations with Israel. They want more economic development, prosperity. And when we poll the average citizen, though, Palestine is still a very high priority for the average citizen in the Arab world, wherever you go. Two points to that, I'd like to add. We saw this, right, despite all the claims that the Arab world had moved on and it was ready to globalize and ready to sort of open up to a world order where the Palestinian issue was not dragging Arab countries down. You saw this in the World cup in Qatar, where there was any opportunity for those crowds from across the Muslim world and the Middle east to chant for Palestine, those crowds took the opportunity. And so again, that was one thing that we, as you know, pollsters, if you may, we kept our eye on. But furthermore, we also see in our polls year in and year out, or at least wave in and wave out, their support for the Palestinian cause and for Palestinians is quite high. But I want to also let you know, so it just so happens that the Arab barometer was in the field during this time period, as you know. So we were in Gaza and the west bank, but we were also in Tunisia. And in Tunisia, Dan, we started the poll right before the Hamas attacks. And then after the Hamas attacks, we were still polling in Tunisia. If you look at support for the Palestinians among Tunisians, it was already high. It is even higher. The other things to your point, Dan, this is among Tunisians, which we often say they were at least our hope of a democracy in the Arab world. What we also saw is that support for the authoritarian regime, Qaisaid, has gone up since the attacks. Support for democracy has gone down. Support for armed resistance has gone up. And lastly, support for the US and support for Biden have gone down. So, in other words, if you think about our public relations work, our winning hearts and minds work, our winning over democracy in the Arab world, work and efforts and outreach, that has all been sort of reversed right now. And if we know also from previous cycles of violence, it took almost a good decade or so for the US Even to begin to recover some of that lost confidence and faith and trust it had won among the Arab people. We also know under these conditions, radicalization is encouraged. We also know that you have these huge bubbles of unemployment among the youth populations in these regions. We also know that radicalization under these conditions does not bode well. So there's a lot to be worried about right now as we think about where this violence is going. But the fact that the region does not care about the Palestinian issue or has turned its back on the Palestinian issue, or has given up on the Palestinian issue, we're not really seeing this in any of our polling, any of our studies, or any of the observational and anecdotal evidence before us.
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A
And even a well entrenched authoritarian government in Saudi Arabia or the UAE has to care about that public opinion to some degree. Is that. Is that fair to say?
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B
100%. I mean, the fact that in Saudi Arabia, you have Islamic preachers preaching in mosques, and, you know, we know that the Islamic preachers in Saudi Arabia, their sermons are sanctioned by the regime, and the sermons are basically saying it's against Islam for people to mobilize and to protest and to be upset. So the regime is using Islamic interlocutors to try to quell the population.
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A
But if you're Crown Prince MBS right now, you have to be a bit anxious about some of the ferment that has resulted, no matter what your sense of kind of control over the population.
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B
I think every authoritarian leader right now has to be nervous, right. Because, you know, you're seeing mass mobilization in almost every single Arab country.
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A
I want to close, if you're willing, by going to a subject somewhat closer to home. On top of all you've done as a scholar and analyst in these past weeks, you're also the dean of a public policy international affairs school. You wrote a fascinating piece in the New York Times with Karen Yari Milo, who is your counterpart at Columbia on the environment on campus right now. And I'm curious how you see those dynamics and especially what has worked in kind of fostering constructive dialogue and discussion about this, rather than kind of protests and counter protests and less illuminating discourse.
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B
You know, I think we need to recognize that this is a very emotional time and legitimately so. Right. Like there are atrocities happening on both sides that we haven't seen for as long as we've studied the Arab Israeli conflict. I mean, there was the 1973 war. And then from then on, at least, this level of devastation has not been witnessed. So our youth who are plugged into social media, who are seeing things in real time, both on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side, they're devastated. They're emotionally devastated, and they feel that they need people and the schools that they're in to legitimate their concerns and their feelings. We as institutions, we're institutions of higher education. In these institutions of higher education, we want to ensure that all our students have the ability to express their opinions, to have constructive dialogue without being silenced, without feeling threatened. All of our students need to have safe spaces. You know, I believe our role as educators is to make sure that those spaces are protected, that those conversations are happening. As educators, we need to steer these dialogues as well. We need to make sure people are listening to one another. It's surprising, Dan, to me, after 20 years of being in this conflict. And even now, when you sit with any student on whatever side they are, and you say to them, just look at them in the eye, and you just have to say, I hear you. I understand your pain. That sort of solves almost a good percentage of the problem. But we have to be able to engage one another and we have to be able to have those conversations. So this is what our roles are as educators. This is what the role of higher education should be on any sort of contested area. Our job is to make sure that we are able to continue educating with critical perspectives, diverse perspectives, opposing opinions, and hopefully in a civilized, respectful forum, sort of. That's what's going on here, Dan. And we're gonna keep pushing forward on this.
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A
That is a good note to end on. Thank you for the profoundly illuminating work you've been doing and will continue to do on this subject. For joining us at such a busy and intense time for you.
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B
Thank you so much, Dan.
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A
Thank you for listening. You can find the articles that we discussed on Today Today's show@foreign affairs.com the Foreign affairs interview is produced by Kate Brannan, Julia Fleming dresser and Molly McEnany. Special thanks also to Grace Finlayson, Caitlin Joseph, Nora Revenaugh, Asher Ross, Gabrielle Sierra and Marcus Zacharia. Our theme music was written and performed by Robin Hilton. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you like what you heard, please take a minute to rate and review review it. We release a new show every other Thursday. Thanks again for tuning in.