Pod Insights The Ezra Klein Show She Polled Gazans on Oct. 6. Here’s What She Found. About this episode The day before Hamas’s horrific attacks in Israel, the Arab Barometer, one of the leading polling operations in the Arab world, was finishing up a survey of public opinion in Gaza.
The result is a remarkable snapshot of how Gazans felt about Hamas and hoped the conflict with Israel would end. And what Gazans were thinking on Oct. 6 matters, now that they’re all living with the brutal consequences of what Hamas did on Oct. 7.
So I invited on the show Amaney Jamal, the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a co-founder and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer, so she could walk me through the results.
And, it’s a complicated picture. The people of Gaza, like any other population, have diverse beliefs. But one thing is clear: Hamas was not very popular.
As Jamal and her co-author write: “The Hamas-led government may be uninterested in peace, but it is empirically wrong for Israeli political leaders to accuse all Gazans of the same.”
Mentioned:
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research Public Opinion Poll
Washington Institute Poll
Book Recommendations:
The One State Reality edited by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley
Arabs and Israelis by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki
A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict by Mark Tessler
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected] .
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Emefa Agawu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Ezra Klein? From New York Times Opinion, this is the Ezra Klein Show.
0:23 Ezra Klein? So I want to start today with a question I've been getting, which is why I've been treating Israel as the primary agent here. To quote one email, "All you can do is condemn the brutality of the bombing." Well, guess what? "Do you want to stop the bombing? Release the hostages now, and maybe, maybe something will change." "You want fuel and electricity in Gaza? Tell Hamas." Or here's another email. "Are you planning an episode called 'If Not This, Then What Should Hamas Have Done'? After all, you had an episode on what should Israel do. It makes sense to take the exact perspective on Hamas." I get where this is coming from. I really do. There would be no invasion of Gaza right now, no massive
1:07 Ezra Klein? air bombing campaign, no siege of food and water. If Hamas hadn't butchered more than 1,400 people in Israel and taken hundreds more hostage on October 7th, they did this. It should be on them to end it. Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official, went on Lebanese television the other day, and he said, quote, "We will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth." That is truly monstrous. Israel is right, I've said this before, to want to destroy Hamas, or at least destroy the threat that it poses. Every country in the world would
1:51 Ezra Klein? want the same in its position. But if you agree with what I just said, that Hamas is truly monstrous, that there is something truly chilling about an organization that will slaughter Israeli civilians and then hide among Palestinian civilians, then there is some dissonance between the desire to treat Hamas as the brutal organization that it is, and also to say that every Palestinian in Gaza should be dependent upon that same immoral terrorist organization, making humane, decent decisions. That Israel is seen as at least potentially a moral restrained actor here is a strength. Israel's weakness, or one of its weaknesses, is how much of that reputation it gave up in recent years.
2:35 Ezra Klein? The Netanyahu administration spent the last decade coexisting with and even strengthening Hamas because that weakened the more moderate Palestinian Authority. They spent that decade annexing territory in the West Bank. As Bezalel Smotrich, the current finance minister, said in 2015, "The Palestinian Authority is a liability. Hamas is an asset." That's one reason so many Israelis are so furious, so properly furious, at the Netanyahu government right now. But one thing Israel and Israelis have is the benefit of complexity. Even though the Netanyahu administration won its power in elections, we understand that it is not synonymous with Israelis, and that distinction is proper.
3:20 Ezra Klein? But I don't think that the American conversation, at least, always extends that same complexity to Palestinians. I want to go back to that interview with Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas official. After saying that Hamas wants a second, third, fourth Al-Aqsa flood, he says, "Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs." End quote. One wonders whether so many Gazans want to be sacrificed as martyrs by Hamas. There have not been elections in Gaza in almost 20 years. The polling we have shows the Gazans dislike and distrust Hamas. But I think Palestinians are much more often spoken of, at least in America, as an undifferentiated mass.
4:04 Ezra Klein? Their support for Hamas is often assumed, which is one reason I think so many are willing to hold them collectively responsible for what Hamas does. One intention I have for my coverage here is to hold true the humanity and the complexity of both sides. Except for in some truly lost parts of the left or the anti-Semitic parts of the right, I don't think that's a problem Israelis face in America. I do think it's a problem Palestinians face. So I asked Amaney Jamal, dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs on the show. Dr. Jamal is Palestinian. She spent much of her childhood in Ramallah, and she is also one of the leaders of the Arab Barometer Project, which, among other work, has been doing deep survey work on
4:47 Ezra Klein? Palestinian public opinion. As always, my email, [email protected] .
4:59 Ezra Klein? Dr. Mani Jamal, welcome to the show.
5:01 Speaker 01 Thank you so much Ezra for having me.
5:03 Ezra Klein? So we're talking, today's Tuesday, October 31st. When was your last survey in Gaza conducted?
5:10 Speaker 01 Our last survey in Gaza was conducted at the end of September through October 6.
5:17 Ezra Klein? So it wrapped one day before Hamas's attack?
5:20 Speaker 01 Yes.
5:22 Ezra Klein? That is a wild.
5:23 Speaker 01 It's a very wild. We had a couple of responses on October 7th, but we had primarily wrapped up the work on October 6.
5:31 Ezra Klein? So I want to go through some of the main results. And one thing you did was you polled attitudes on Hamas. What did you find in Gaza and what did you find in the West Bank?
5:40 Speaker 01 So generally in Gaza, what we found is that trust for the Hamas government was low. It seems to be on the decline. So we found about 67% said they had no trust or little trust in Hamas. Furthermore, when we asked people about if elections were held today, as you know Ezra, elections have not been held in the Palestinian territories since 2006. So for almost 20 years now. But when we asked people if elections were held today, who would you vote for? What we also found is that about a quarter said that they would vote for Ismail Haniya, who's the leader of Hamas in a presidential election.
6:25 Speaker 01 Mahmoud Abbas did not receive very high scores either. So the Palestinian Authority, it appears also doesn't have great legitimacy. And when we asked people in Gaza, who is their preferred party? 27% said Hamas, which is lower than a third, closer to a quarter. And then 30% said they would favor Fatah, which is also less than a third. So again, it appears that both Hamas and Fatah do not enjoy great support or popularity among the citizens in Gaza. In fact, what we found is that a good percentage of citizens in Gaza have little faith in either of the political parties.
7:11 Ezra Klein? So if they don't want the leaders of Hamas or Fatah to represent them, who was the most popular choice for leadership?
7:19 Speaker 01 So the most popular leader, but not by a great margin, is Morawan Barghouti, who is in Israeli prison for his terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens.
7:31 Ezra Klein? And what do they like about him?
7:33 Speaker 01 So despite his atrocious sort of track record with Israelis, he is perceived to be a leader that lacks corruption, a leader that, if given the chance, would lead the Palestinian people honestly and favorably. We really don't have much of a record of that. So Morawan Barghouti has never really held an official public office in the way of representing the Palestinian people. So this is nevertheless a perception that he would rule honestly and would have a government that wasn't very corrupt.
8:10 Ezra Klein? This gets at something that I saw in your polls, that I saw in other polls I looked at of Palestinians, both in the West Bank and Gaza, which is that, I think in America, we think about the dominant, maybe even the only issue, as being the relationship and the conflict with Israel. When you look at the polling, corruption is often the top issue. And corruption is, I think, often believed to be why Hamas won in Gaza in 2006 in the elections. It did happen. Now Hamas is seen as incredibly corrupt. Corruption does seem to be, at least, a top domestic issue.
8:44 Speaker 01 That is correct, Ezra. And that's a really good point to discuss with your viewers, which is that the average Palestinian on a day to day is not only assessing the condition of their livelihood vis a vis the Israeli occupation, but they are also juxtaposing their perception vis a vis the governing authority. So in the West Bank, that is the Palestinian Authority. In Gaza, it is the Hamas-led government. And on both ends, Palestinian perceptions of corruption are very high. And among Palestinians, especially because there's this discourse and there's this feeling that they've already been disadvantaged. By Israeli occupation and by an international
9:25 Speaker 01 community that more or less has been silent on the occupation, that to add insult to injury Ezra, you then get governing authorities that are also corrupt, that are also dispossessing Palestinian people of their material well being. And this is just, again, a deep wound for the Palestinians to have to live and contend with levels of corruption. So we see this in our polls and we see this in our interviews and our focus groups, that it's just like yet another layer of injustice.
10:20 Ezra Klein? One thing I was thinking about when reading the poll was the way that Palestinians are discussing their situation internally and the way that their relationship with Hamas is seen, particularly from Gaza, externally. And I want to read you something that Israeli President Isaac Herzog said about Palestinians in Gaza right after the attacks. And he said, quote, "It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime." So how do you think about that?
11:00 Speaker 01 So, I mean, that is just really, with all due respect Ezra, as an analyst, it is just really inaccurate. We know that Hamas leads in a very dictatorial fashion in Gaza.
11:13 Speaker 01 We know from the poll that 40% said that the freedom of expression in Gaza was guaranteed to a great or moderate extent, which means about 60% did not believe the freedom of expression was guaranteed. And then about close to 70% believe that the right to participate in a peaceful protest was not protected under Hamas rule. So increasingly Palestinians in Gaza, at the eve of these atrocious attacks, were feeling that their freedoms and ability to express their opinion was limited, to express their opposition to the Hamas government was limited. You know, in Gaza and elsewhere, even on the West Bank, it's increasingly become common
11:58 Speaker 01 to hear of stories where Palestinians oppose the leaderships and they are arrested for criticizing the government. So you have a population that is basically under this Israeli occupation, but then living under authoritarian rule of their own leaders. And then the world community or President Herzog basically saying, well, they're going to be held responsible for what Hamas did. That is just inaccurate. That does not reflect the realities on the ground. And Hamas has not been representative of the Palestinian people. Everybody keeps basing the Hamas popularity on the 2006 election, Ezra, which you mentioned.
12:42 Speaker 01 And remember, the 2006 election, even if it brought Hamas to power, that election never was based on a landslide for Hamas. Hamas secured 44% of the popular vote in that election. And to your point, a lot of that vote was mobilized on ending corruption of the PA.
13:01 Ezra Klein? One thing that is striking me across every poll I can find is Abbas, who I think is often considered fairly moderate, at least for this conflict, is almost unfathomably unpopular. Why?
13:17 Speaker 01 I mean, it's not only that he's unpopular. 52% of Gazans believe the PA, the Palestinian Authority, which is led by Mahmoud Abbas, is a burden on the Palestinian people. And 67% in Gaza would like to see Abbas resign. So these are horrendous polls in terms of thinking about... What alternate leaders are there for the Palestinian people? But here's the issue. Yes, the Palestinian Authority is very corrupt. It's been well documented, Ezra. I've written on this in my book, Barriers to Democracy. Having said that, if you go back to 1993 and after that, the whole creation of the Palestinian Authority was to bring Palestinian people,
14:00 Speaker 01 an aura of autonomy and independence in a two-state solution that stood side by side with Israel. And year in and year out, what's happened since Oslo is that the Palestinian Authority increasingly became a governing authority that was governing much more authoritatively while being seen as unable to bring any of the building blocks of building that Palestinian state, moving that peace process forward. Settlements have expanded. If you go to the West Bank, if you visit the West Bank year in and year out, Ezra, you'll see that the land of the West Bank has shrunk and it is divided,
14:45 Speaker 01 where you can't travel between towns. And all the while, the Palestinian Authority is governing more authoritatively in these small enclaves on the West Bank. So that has been a disastrous formula for Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, is the fact that before their very eyes, Palestinians have seen even further dispossession. The idea of a two-state solution, although on a personal level, I have always supported and still support. I understand that it's very difficult to talk about a two-state solution right now because the realities on the ground have changed drastically, to the extent that it's very unclear about whether a two-state solution is even possible. And the truth is, Ezra,
15:29 Speaker 01 you can't blame the failure of the peace talks on Mahmoud Abbas and the PA. So we can talk about the corruption. We can talk about authoritarian rule. But the failure of the peace process, you cannot lay that responsibility on the doorsteps of the Palestinian Authority. The truth is, Israel, for the longest time, especially under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, has chosen not to engage in a peace process, has chosen not to work.
16:00 Ezra Klein? I don't think there's any doubt that Netanyahu has done almost everything he could to not have negotiations in a serious way with with Abbas. And in fact, that, I mean, it has been well reported and well discussed that part of the way that he engaged with Hamas was meant to weaken the Palestinian Authority, so he didn't have to make those kinds of concessions. But I do want to ask here that one thing I will often hear from Israelis is that there have been opportunities and part of the reason they have given up on the two-state solution is their sense that those opportunities were not taken, including by Abbas. And the specific one I often hear about is an offer made by Houdeh al-Mehdi, sort of
16:44 Ezra Klein? towards the end of his administration. And I'm always so careful when I wade into this because the claims and counterclaims are very complicated. But there was some kind of offer from al-Mehdi, and the details on it differ between the two camps, that in his telling at least, was more land than had been offered before. And the feeling was that Abbas did not respond, although, again, that is contested by Abbas's camp. But I'm curious what you make of that sort of moment, right before Netanyahu comes in and the whole politics of this changes.
17:14 Speaker 01 So this is a good point, Ezra. And like you, I have heard from my Israeli friends and colleagues who were involved in the Track Two negotiations and from the Palestinian side. And quite honestly, you will get accounts that say, yes, this was offered, but it was never put in writing. Or this was never offered, but they say it was. Or, you know, the Israelis are still talking about being afraid of the Palestinian right of return, that there was actually significant movement on that in the negotiations. So you're always hearing the conflicting sides. But the truth is, this ongoing narrative around peace, which is that everybody has this one opportunity to either take it or leave it.
17:58 Speaker 01 And if people didn't take it, or they couldn't come to that agreement, it means that we're never going back to the negotiation table. And I've given this so much thought, as you can imagine. The real argument can be, should be, is that so much progress was made at Camp David. So much progress was made, maybe with the Ulmer plant. And then so much progress was made with what Mahmoud Abbas and the P A were willing to accept. Why did we not build on those successes? Because every time, Ezra, there were political forces that did not want peace. They did not want further concessions. They did not want the negotiation and basically the ability to
18:41 Speaker 01 come up with a resolution of compromise. These leaders would take us back. So rather than the discourse always focusing on the fault of the peacemakers who are really doing the hard work, I think we need to start asking our questions about the leaders who came and destroyed the peace process. The leaders who came and said, "We don't want peace. We don't want to work with the Palestinian Authority, and we'd rather work with Hamas." That's where the focus and the scrutiny should be. I think the peace process has been vilified because there were always groups and leaders who didn't want peace.
19:19 Speaker 01 But the Ulmer's of the world, the Ehud Barak's, even Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the P A, the concessions that the world was willing to make, or these leaders were willing to make, the heroic concessions, the courageous concessions, the concessions that Ittihad Rabin, before he was assassinated for his concessions, right? That they were willing to make to bring peace. Why are these efforts vilified and always put in this very negative framework? Rather than saying, "Oh, my God, so much progress was made." You've had the recognition of the state of Israel. You had the denunciation of terrorism by the Palestinians.
20:00 Speaker 01 You had the willingness of land swaps to keep some of the settlements on the West Bank. You had security arrangements and security agreements where there were joint security patrols, patrolling a lot of the areas between Israel and the West Bank. There was a lot of cooperation, not only on security, but health and education and the economy. This was an enormous amount of work for coexistence and for mutual peace. And it was discarded, Ezra, under the guise of, oh, you know, they couldn't just agree at this one meeting on something. So what? Let's have another meeting. Let's have another effort. Which world leaders, since the failure of Camp David,
20:45 Speaker 01 have tried to seriously bring the Palestinians and Israelis together to push this two-state solution forward?
20:52 Ezra Klein? I do think you've seen a couple of people try. There were some very ill-fated attempts from John Kerry under Obama when he was an envoy on this. The Trump administration, I think, moved to an idea that you could make peace between Israel and other Arab nations, and you didn't have to do anything with the Palestinians at all. There wasn't very much happening under Joe Biden. But I think one reason this has begun to rot is a sense that it's impossible, both for the reasons you lay out, that there are many more settlements now on the ground, that the two sides are further apart, but also that people don't want it, that the polling, the public, has turned against it. And you did do polling on this in Gaza. So I wanted to ask what Gazans in your surveys said
21:33 Ezra Klein? about how they wanted to see the conflict resolved, what solution they were in favor of.
21:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, so we asked people in Gaza of the three solutions.
21:45 Speaker 01 A two-state solution that recognizes Israel and is based on the 1967 borders. A second option of a confederation between Israel and a future Palestine. And the third option being a one-state solution. And that's the one-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians would all live in one state, enjoy equal opportunities. Now Ezra, there was a fourth option that was other, that people could basically write in, you know, any other option. About 20% opted for that other option and they opted for armed resistance against Israel. But that was only 20%. A majority supported the two-state option.
22:28 Ezra Klein? So I have some questions about this. So you, you did this poll in conjunction with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. And so I was looking at some of their other recent polls and they seem to show very, very different results. So this poll, you know, as you mentioned, done in September and October, they had a June 2023 poll that found, quote, "Support for the concept of the two-state solution stands at 28% and opposition stands at 70%." So what should I make of the difference between these two results?
22:58 Speaker 01 So this is really good question Ezra, and I'm glad that you asked it because we did spend a lot of time before we wrote up our results, we looked at the Palestinian survey that you just cited. So that survey generally was sort of framed around the failure of Oslo almost 30 years later. So that's the general tenor of that survey. So there's a series of questions in that survey that highlight the failure of the two-state solution, the failure of the peace process and the failure of Oslo. So what we say, what we are sort of arguing is that the Palestinian sample of this particular survey was
23:39 Speaker 01 Basically fed different primes to put them in a very negative framework about the two-state solution. And I'm not saying that that was the intention of the Palestinian Center. We work with them. You know Khalil Shikaki, somebody we hold in very high regard as a colleague.
23:58 Ezra Klein? He's the head of the Center.
23:59 Speaker 01 Yes. But here's Q33. Question 33. President Abbas made a speech at the UN in which he described the evolving conditions in the West Bank as a one-state reality with two peoples, the Palestinian and Israeli, and described it as a reality of apartheid. He emphasized that if the Israeli occupation is not ended, the Palestinians will demand equal rights in a one-state for two people. Are you for or against a one-state solution where the two sides enjoy equal rights? That's Q33. Then Q35, it asks, do you support or oppose the solution based on an establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel known as a two-state solution? So after you've told them that they're living in apartheid,
24:44 Speaker 01 after you've told Palestinians that their president Abbas says they're living in apartheid, and more or less the two-state solution has failed, Q35 comes after to say, do you support that? So in other words, the survey was not necessarily about a straight-up, do you support a two-state solution? The survey was more about, do you believe a two-state solution is even viable, given that your president says you live under apartheid? Does that make sense?
25:14 Ezra Klein? It does. I mean, I will say that I looked across a couple of surveys. So I take your point that that survey was about the failure of the Oslo Accords. There's another survey from December 2022 that shows that given sort of force options of what should happen next in the conflict, 31% of Palestinians choose reach a peace agreement, but 40% choose wage an armed struggle against Israeli occupation. And my point is not that one is right and one is wrong. I feel like what you're saying is in some ways more interesting than that, that if there is so much malleability.
25:47 Ezra Klein? In public opinion among Palestinians, and for that matter, among Israelis, which also changed in different surveys. If there's so much malleability in Palestinian views on what should be done here, depending on how questions are asked and questions are primed, that also implies actually quite a lot of malleability, potentially in reality, that how people might feel about the peace process in one context, right, one way, one moment in the conflict, one administration they see in Israel, one way of being treated, and how they feel in another could change very dramatically, such that it sounds to me that the takeaway from this would be you should never really see the opinion here as fixed.
26:30 Speaker 01 I think that's a good way to say, to put it, Ezra, or more importantly, let's just put it this way. And I, you know, I'm not an expert on Israeli opinion, but I have colleagues working on Israeli opinion, is that the average citizen in Palestine-Israel is a rational citizen. And in the end of the day, the average citizen in Palestine-Israel wants a life of dignity, security, and respect. And if that's how we frame the advantages of peace, if that's how leaders talk about peace, rather than it being a liability and it being basically something that is so horrible because we tried it 30 years ago, we're never going to try it again, then guess what? People are not going to support it.
27:13 Speaker 01 And so it comes down to what messages and what our leaders are promoting on both sides. Now, to be fair, again, to back the Palestinian Authority, they have always called for a two-state solution. Hamas has not. But Hamas has enjoyed a lot of room to grow and to consolidate its authority in Gaza. The Netanyahu government has a coalition that is calling for the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Gaza of Arabs and Palestinians. I mean, how is that framing a conversation about the benefits of mutual recognition and coexistence?
27:56 Ezra Klein? Well, I think we can agree that the leaders in power right now are definitely not framing that conversation. I do want to bring this back, actually, to Hamas, because you've done survey work there over long periods of time, and so you've seen how support for Hamas changes during periods of conflict with Israel, during periods of more armed resistance, during periods of war. What have you seen there? What happens to support for Hamas during periods of increased conflict with Israel?
28:26 Speaker 01 So what we see typically, Ezra, is that when you have these cycles of violence, and when you have basically what's seen as the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, especially in Gaza, this bodes well for support for Hamas. That, okay, you know what? We're going to support this terrorist movement, because the world is not listening. Even when we were not supporting Hamas, we were told we were supporting Hamas, and we were punished for not even supporting Hamas. So it does bode well in terms of support for Hamas. I mean, think about what that psychologically might do to our population.
29:26 Ezra Klein? There is a tendency from outside to be primarily interested, I think, in what Gazans think of the peace process, or the lack of a peace process, of Hamas as governing authority. But obviously, they, like almost all people, are concerned with their day-to-day life. And one of the things that really struck me in your polling had to do with simply the questions about material reality, and particularly the questions about food, and how that's changed over time. Can you walk me through that?
29:54 Speaker 01 So what we found, Ezra, is about three-fourths, it's about 75% of Palestinians in Gaza saying that...
30:06 Speaker 01 They had run out of food and lacked the money to buy more at some point during the previous 30 days. So that's three in every four individuals saying that they didn't have enough food to eat. And that number is up significantly from our 2021 survey. We're only 51%. So about half of Gazans said they couldn't afford to eat. I mean, Gaza has been under blockade, and so this blockade has always posed significant economic challenges. I know there are those out there who sort of think that Gaza could have been Dubai. The truth is, under the conditions of the blockade, that's just not feasible.
30:46 Speaker 01 Before all of this, they were relying on about 500 trucks a day of assistance and aid from the global community and from the international organizations. And we see today some of the global speakers applauding the entry of 20 or 30 trucks since the last three weeks of this devastation happening in Gaza. So there are dire, dire humanitarian conditions. And we see this in the poll even before October 7th, Ezra. So you can only imagine today how much worse it is. And so then the question does become, how well is Hamas doing in terms of governing and providing for the people of Gaza?
31:27 Speaker 01 Clearly, from our survey, we're not finding evidence that the average Palestinian was very content with the economic situation in Gaza before October 7th.
31:38 Ezra Klein? This was one of the most surprising findings from your survey, that when you asked Gazans who they blamed for food insecurity, from the outside, you might think, well, they'll blame Israel because of the blockade. But that isn't what most of them said. How did they think about it?
31:52 Speaker 01 So they did mention the Israeli blockade, but the response that was cited most frequently by Palestinians was basically the Hamas government. The mismanagement of the Hamas-led government. And again, this speaks to the issue that we were talking about, which was levels of corruption. So the average Palestinian might be thinking like, yes, there's this blockade. Yes, this blockade is horrendous, but on top of it, you have mismanagement of the food and the resources of the state that is resulting in an unequal dispersion of resources or foods or aid to people. So they are placing the blame on the Hamas-led government.
32:35 Ezra Klein? And one way of reading that might be that this will weaken the Hamas government. But I was looking back at other things you'd written, and you wrote this piece for The Monkey Cage, which was a political science site at The Washington Post back in 2014. Co-wrote this piece, where you found that Hamas supporters tended to be in a better position economically, and you suggested that, quote, "Instead of pressuring Hamas, a key effect of the blockade has been to make life more difficult for opponents of the movement, and those who wish to benefit economically or incentivized remain tied to Hamas." Tell me a bit about that dynamic.
33:09 Speaker 01 So, and we have evidence of that a little bit, Ezra, in this poll, which is that the poor folks, the veerly disadvantaged people in Gaza, were most critical of Hamas. So it does lead us to believe that there is this middle-class group of individuals that benefits from close ties with Hamas, and they are invested in seeing that government stay in power. But we see that across the Arab world as well. Ironically, the middle class, which is often sort of seen as the champion of democratization or democratic movements, what we find is that this aspiring class of citizens who believe that, okay, there's some aura of economic stability, therefore, I am not going to rock the boat.
33:53 Speaker 01 So, on the surface, they're not staunch supporters of authoritarianism, or for Hamas, or for terrorism. They just find it very beneficial to support a status quo government that is okay for their economic livelihood. These are the people who sort of like will turn a blind eye to the excesses of these regimes, as long as their economic conditions are met. It's really the poor disadvantaged citizens across these societies that end up having to bear the brunt of public mismanagement and of a government that is not representing their interests.
34:30 Ezra Klein? How much does that turn them towards more radical alternatives? I mean, something I noticed in a couple of different polls was very high levels of support for the forming of armed groups like Lions Den and the Janine Battalion. There was a poll from the Washington Institute that found high levels of support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is arguably more extreme than Hamas. How much does the frustration with the PA and with Hamas turn people towards more radical movements?
35:01 Speaker 01 These are questions that we sort of analyze all the time, like who is more susceptible to radicalization in general? And what we often find is that your average person who has limited upward social mobility tends to sort of be more susceptible to the calls of radicalization. But also what we're learning and what we're seeing in our polls is that people want alternatives to the status quo. If you had an alternative in Gaza today that would say, oh, we're gonna fight for the two-state solution, but yet that movement is living under blockade, that movement does
35:44 Speaker 01 not have any partners to speak to, that movement has no world support, the average citizen is not gonna find that message very appealing. And so unfortunately, groups like then Islamic Jihad, who are more extreme than Hamas, can basically say, and this is what they'll say in their mobilization, "Look, the PA failed because it wanted peace. Hamas was in a ceasefire with Israel and it's compromised," quote unquote. And then Islamic Jihad, "Well, yeah, we're like the true terrorists. Join us because there are no alternatives." I want to make sure that your listeners understand and appreciate this.
36:23 Speaker 01 It is incumbent upon a global society to give people different alternatives to believe in and that track well among their people. The fact that nobody can talk about a two-state solution in Gaza, even though we saw that there's support for it, it was before the attacks and before the Israeli attacks on citizens. So this is not out of a moment of desperation. There is some genuine support there. At least there is some support that you can tap into. But that message of two-state solution or a peaceful resolution does not track well because leaders and the political process has failed.
37:08 Speaker 01 It's no longer seen as a very legitimate option, Ezra.
37:13 Ezra Klein? One thing that alarmed me when I was preparing for this is that I think in America, we're used to an age breakdown where younger people are more liberal, a bit more dovish, a bit more idealistic. And in Israel and in Palestine, you see something different. These are much younger societies than we are. The average age of Israelis is around 30. The average age of a Palestinian is around 20. And young Palestinians appear more open to the formation of armed groups. The anti-judicial reform movement has been older in Israel. The Israeli left skews older at this point. And in surveys I've seen of Gaza and the West Bank, younger respondents seem to be more militaristic, more fatalistic about the possibilities for a two-state solution than older Palestinians are. So first, is that a correct rendering of the polling and your understanding of it? And second,
37:58 Ezra Klein? what do you make of it?
38:00 Speaker 01 So I do believe it's correct. You do see these more extreme attitudes among youth populations on both the Israeli and Palestinian side. The truth is, Ezra, at least, if I'm correct, and there wasn't extensive polling back on the eve of Oslo, that wasn't the case then. Then you had like groups like Seeds of Peace, you had ideas about reconciliation. It was very common for the youth to talk about the advantages and the possibilities and the dreams and the hopes linked to a two-state solution. So again, what we see today in these polls is really a byproduct of a failed political process and failed leadership
38:42 Speaker 01 on both sides that have pushed their publics to the extreme, right? So this has a very sad effect on the youth on both sides. But also, I want to bring in the role of social media. I look at some of the things I'm seeing on TikTok and elsewhere, and the truth is, it just pains me. It pains me as a mother. It pains me as a citizen of the world. It pains me as somebody who still fundamentally believes in a two-state solution, that our children could be so ruthless to each other on both the Israeli and Palestinian side. It just pains me. It pains me, pains me, pains me. When our children are ridiculing the death and suffering of the other side, somebody has done something wrong.
39:26 Speaker 01 And I just hope that we look at this and we say that this is what the failure of reconciliation and peace has brought. We are, there is an active dehumanization campaign going on, on both ends, and it's just got to stop. You know, when you look at Palestinian public opinion, and I can speak authoritatively on the Palestinian public opinion side of it, it also matters what world leaders say. So when world leaders come around and basically dehumanize Palestinians, or legitimize the killing of women and children, or basically do not say anything about the humanity behind
40:06 Speaker 01 these women and children being killed, that hardens their opinions about the peace process, about the state of Israel, about the global community. This is also a population that is desperate for international recognition of their humanity, and you saw this. You saw that Queen Rania basically took to the airwaves with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, and basically, her whole message was, I want the West to remember that we, our people, are human beings. They are just human beings. When any leader just simply says, you have to remember that Palestinians are also human, we see changes in public opinion that are far more favorable.
40:49 Speaker 01 So again, Palestinians are frustrated with the lack of humanization of their own children, their own lives, their own plights in this conflict.
41:00 Ezra Klein? Does that go the other way too? One thing I've heard from a lot of Israelis, particularly over the last couple of weeks, although you hear it more often too, although I've heard it before also, is that, yes, Israelis are seen as human in much of the West, but they fear that any group that would elect Hamas does not see them as human, that their lives are beyond expendable. And of course, the attacks on October 7th seemed like final confirmation of that. I mean, they were butchered. There's often an anger or a fear that they are not seen as human enough by Palestinians, by others in the Arab world, to live next to, to live alongside, and as such, then they cannot feel safe enough to do so. Is there anything owed to them too?
41:43 Speaker 01 A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I mean, of course Israelis also are very shaken by the core. I mean, what happened to them on October 7th is atrocious. And like you said, they were butchered, they were massacred. It is horrendous. But again, I want to just ask you Ezra, I mean, the fact that immediately it was well known that Israel was going to retaliate for this in Gaza. Palestinians were told to evacuate and go south and north and east, and we don't know, right? Is it really for Israelis to sit there and wait for the Gazans to talk about this Israeli suffering while they are now going to be suffering as well? I mean, is that the litmus test?
42:25 Speaker 01 So I do believe that Israeli security and the humanity and the dignity of Israeli citizen and the sanctity of Israeli and Jewish life in Israel should not be based on what's happening in moments of war and devastation. This is not the finest moment of the Palestinian-Israeli coexistence. Why? Because for 20 years extremists have led this conflict. There's a lot of hatred, a lot of pain, and right now they're in the middle of the war. But in general, there is a lot of outrage in terms of what happened in Israel. And so that is the common ground
43:07 Speaker 01 that peacemakers need to bring leaders together to simultaneously condemn and stand with the citizens of Israel, but also stand with the citizens of Gaza, who had nothing to do with this. I mean, if Hamas is this organization that is propped up by Iran or is a proxy of Iran, why are you holding accountable innocent children in Gaza for that? Or not you, I'm not saying, why is the world? And so, in the end of the day, the political process has not brought our humanity together. So that Palestinians consider Israelis, we are devastated about what happened. We are shocked, we are horrified for you, we will stand with you.
43:48 Speaker 01 But what platform will allow for that exchange or for Israelis to step up? We're seeing this, we're seeing Israelis protesting in Tel Aviv, saying that they don't stand by what's happening in Gaza.
44:01 Ezra Klein? I think that's a powerful point to end on. So then always our final question. What are three books you'd recommend to the audience?
44:08 Speaker 01 So I recommend a new book by Shibli Talhemi, Michael Barnett, Mark Lynch, and Nathan Brown on the one-state reality. I also recommend a book by my colleague, I mentioned it, Khalil Shikaki and Shai Feldman, that captures what I was trying to get at Ezra in terms of the public opinion, where we see public opinion being softened towards each other and a two-state solution. It's called Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East. And for a good primer and a good history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I recommend my colleague Mark Tessler's book,
44:52 Speaker 01 A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
44:57 Ezra Klein? Dr. Amaney Jamel, thank you so much.
44:59 Speaker 01 Thank you so much, Ezra. I really appreciate it.
45:09 Ezra Klein? This episode of the Ezra Klein Show was produced by Amafa Agau. Fact checking by Michelle Harris with Mary March Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Roland Hu and Kristin Lynn. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy is by Christina Samulski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrera.
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