Podcast: Ghaith al-Omari on What Palestinians Really Think about Hamas, Israel, War, and Peace

A Middle East expert and former Palestinian negotiator breaks down recent polling on Palestinian public opinion.


Palestinians marching against Israel in the city of Hebron in the West Bank on December 12, 2023. HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images.
Palestinians marching against Israel in the city of Hebron in the West Bank on December 12, 2023. HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images.
Observation
Dec. 22 2023
About the authors

A weekly podcast, produced in partnership with the Tikvah Fund, offering up the best thinking on Jewish thought and culture.

Ghaith al-Omari is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 1999 to 2006 he served as an adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team and participated in numerous rounds of negotiation at settings including the 2000 Camp David summit.

Podcast: Ghaith al-Omari

 

Earlier this month, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released a poll of Palestinian attitudes—attitudes towards Israel, towards Hamas, towards the Palestinian Authority, about the Hamas attacks of October 7, about the conduct of the war since that time, and more.

The findings are eye-opening. Asked if the October 7 attacks were the right thing to do, in light of all that’s happened since, 72 percent of Palestinians think they were. A further 85 percent said that they have not seen the videos of the October 7 attacks, and the vast majority do not believe that Hamas committed the atrocities that the videos show. Meanwhile, 66 percet of Palestinian respondents do not support the idea of a two-state solution. Approximately the same number, 63 percent of Palestinian respondents, believes that armed struggle is the best means of achieving, in the words of the poll, “an end to the occupation and the building of an independent state.”

Ghaith al-Omari is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine, and served as an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during the 1999–2001 permanent-status talks (in addition to holding various other positions within the Palestinian Authority). Here, in conversation with Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver, he breaks down some of this data and offers historical and political context for it.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

 

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, Israel & Zionism