According to a recent poll conducted by a respected Palestinian research group, 65 percent of Palestinians supported the April bombing of a bus in Jerusalem in which more than twenty Israelis were injured. This poll and other data, writes Daniel Polisar, suggest that last week’s shooting in Tel Aviv was equally popular:

Since August 2014, [pollsters] have on eight occasions asked Palestinians about their attitudes regarding “attacks against Israeli civilians within Israel,” and each time the majority expressed support. In the March 2016 poll, the last time this question was asked, 60 percent of Palestinians backed such attacks. . . .

[In addition, one] pattern has been consistent during the past decade and a half, with only a brief exception: high percentages of Palestinians have supported terror attacks on Israeli civilians in general, while even higher percentages have backed specific bombings and shootings that killed and wounded Israelis. . . .

[Therefore], would-be terrorists contemplating an attack can be reasonably confident that if they succeed in killing or injuring Israeli civilians, their actions will earn support and praise in their society—for themselves, their families, and the militant group to which they belong, whether or not they live to enjoy it personally. Indeed, they will be seen as heroes, not only in the communiques of Hamas but in the minds of rank-and-file Palestinians. As I have written previously, this may result from the society-wide veneration of martyrs during the weeks after they attain martyrdom (especially those who die while taking the battle to the Zionist enemy), or from the enthusiasm for striking Israelis in places of special significance—like Tel Aviv, the symbol of Jewish economic and military power, or Jerusalem, the epicenter of political rule and religious contention. . . .

Only if there is a sharp and durable decline in this deep-rooted support for such wanton violence and for those who perpetrate it can there be real hope that this kind of terrorism will become, as it ought to be, a relic of the past.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.