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.