Drawing on recent surveys of Palestinian public opinion in both Gaza and the West Bank, David Pollock notes the gap between the opinions generally attributed to Palestinians and what they actually tell pollsters:

[W]hile some [observers] attribute Palestinian rejection of President Trump’s [peace] plan to its new limits on the traditional two-state paradigm, most Palestinian respondents now reject that [paradigm]. Asked to choose “the top Palestinian national priority during the coming five years,” two-thirds of West Bankers [picked] “regaining all of historical Palestine for the Palestinians”; a mere 14 percent chose “ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, to achieve a two-state solution.” Gazan respondents, surprisingly, are a bit more moderate: 56 percent want all of Palestine, while 31 percent opt for the two-state solution.

These maximalist long-term aspirations are also reflected in responses to other survey questions. For example, when asked about next steps “if the Palestinian leadership is able to negotiate a two-state solution,” just 26 percent of West Bank respondents say that it “should end the conflict with Israel.” In Gaza, that figure climbs to 40 percent. Around 60 percent in both areas say “the conflict should not end, and resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.”

At the same time, contrary to common misconception, the idea of a binational state . . . does not seem to be gaining much popular Palestinian support.

Nonetheless, few West Bank Palestinians want a new intifada, or even want the Palestinian Authority to continue paying terrorists and their families:

Regarding Palestinian Authority bonuses to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons, West Bank respondents are strikingly at odds with their political leaders. Two-thirds now agree at least “somewhat” with this proposition: “The PA should stop special payments to prisoners, and give their families normal social benefits like everybody else—not extra payments based on their sentences or armed operations.” This figure represents a marked increase over the previous three years. Similarly, West Bank respondents . . . reject the official PA policy against “normalization” with Israelis.

With the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program damaged, and its regional influence diminished, the U.S. must now prevent it from recovering, and, if possible, weaken it further. Benjamin Baird argues that it can do both through economic means—if Congress does its part:

Legislation that codifies President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policies into law, places sanctions on Iran’s energy sales, and designates the regime’s proxy armies as foreign terrorist organizations will go a long way toward containing Iran’s regime and encouraging its downfall. . . . Congress has already introduced much of the legislation needed to bring the ayatollah to his knees, and committee chairmen need only hold markup hearings to advance these bills and send them to the House and Senate floors.

They should start with the HR 2614—the Maximum Support Act. What the Iranian people truly need to overcome the regime is protection from the state security apparatus.

Next, Congress must get to work dismantling Iran’s proxy army in Iraq. By sanctioning and designating a list of 29 Iran-backed Iraqi militias through the Florida representative Greg Steube’s Iranian Terror Prevention Act, the U.S. can shut down . . . groups like the Badr Organization and Kataib Hizballah, which are part of the Iranian-sponsored armed groups responsible for killing hundreds of American service members.

Those same militias are almost certainly responsible for a series of drone attacks on oilfields in Iraq over the past few days