From reading the Western press—or, for that matter, the Israeli press—one would imagine that most Palestinians see Israeli construction in the West Bank as one of the primary threats to their wellbeing and would furiously and perhaps violently protest a move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. But a recent poll suggests very different priorities, writes David Pollock, and even gives some reasons for hope:

The most startling finding concerns the bonuses the Palestinian Authority (PA) pays to convicted terrorists. . . . The PA has claimed that popular pressure compels it to persist in this practice. In fact, the survey shows that two-thirds of Palestinians think “the PA should give prisoners’ families normal social benefits like everybody else, not extra payments based on their sentences or armed operations.” . . . .

Similarly, on the controversial issue of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the Palestinian public is less militant than its leaders. In the West Bank . . . the majority (56 percent) say this issue is “not so important” or even “not important at all.” Gazans are more opposed; but just one-quarter of them label moving the U.S. embassy a “very important” issue. . . .

Equally revealing are the answers to this question: “What is the one thing you’d most like the U.S. to do about the Palestinian issues these days?” A plurality of West Bankers pick “put pressure on the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to be more democratic and less corrupt”—more than those who prefer “pressure on Israel to make concessions” or “increased economic aid to the Palestinians.” Among Gazans, economic aid comes first. . . . Moreover, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza continue to prioritize their personal lives over politics. . . . And significantly, concerning Hamas, most Palestinians now seek to defuse its conflict with Israel. . . .

None of this means, [however], that the Palestinian public endorses Israel’s legitimacy. Indeed, the percentage who say that “Jews have some rights to this land” is only in the single digits. Yet while most deny Israel’s right to exist, most accept the necessity to coexist.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.