A recent poll has been used to claim that most Palestinians “support Hamas’s atrocities.” In truth, it reveals not moral depravity but the depth of hopelessness created by occupation, blockade, and the collapse of politics.

Sir Afilonius Rex

New York, New York

1st November 2025

A commentary circulated this week declares that “most Palestinians support Hamas’s atrocities.” It cites a new opinion poll as evidence that a future Palestinian state would be a moral and political disaster. The claim makes for an alarming headline, but it is also deeply misleading. What it really reveals is how data, stripped of context and empathy, can become a form of propaganda.

The article in question relies on a single survey from the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), a respected independent institute in Ramallah. According to the commentary, 53 per cent of Palestinians said Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel was “correct.” From this, the author concludes that a majority of Palestinians not only endorse the assault but also the atrocities committed against civilians.

That is not what the data show. PCPSR’s polls consistently distinguish between support for armed resistance, an abstract expression of defiance after decades of occupation and siege, and approval of killing civilians, which majorities have repeatedly rejected when asked directly. To conflate the two is either a sign of ignorance or manipulation.

For many Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, “support” for Hamas is less a matter of ideology than of desperation. After 17 years of blockade, repeated bombardments, and the collapse of any viable peace process, Hamas remains for some the only actor that appears to fight back. That sentiment does not excuse violence; it explains why some respondents answer as they do. Context does not justify atrocity, but without context, no number can be honestly interpreted.

Public opinion across Palestinian society is far from monolithic. In Gaza, many resent Hamas’s authoritarian rule but are unable to say so openly. In the West Bank, disillusionment with both Hamas and the ageing, corrupt Palestinian Authority is profound. Among Palestinians in exile, activism tends to focus on human rights and international law rather than armed struggle. To compress all of this diversity into the phrase “Palestinians support jihad” is not analysis; it is collective vilification.

The commentary also omits the structural reality that shapes these attitudes: ongoing occupation, settlement expansion, restrictions on movement, and the immense civilian toll of Israeli military actions. Analysing radicalisation while ignoring those conditions is like diagnosing a fever without mentioning the infection. People living under constant violence are not likely to express optimism about coexistence.

What gives this rhetoric its political potency is how easily it flatters Western fatalism. By portraying Palestinians as irredeemably extremist, commentators and politicians can dismiss calls for diplomacy, statehood, or even a ceasefire as naïve. Demonisation becomes a convenient alibi for inaction. Yet history offers no example of a people dehumanised into submission and then pacified. Despair breeds resistance; humiliation sustains it.

Polls can illuminate, but they can also deceive. A society traumatised by war and blockade will not answer questions the same way a stable democracy would. The interpretation must take account of fear, censorship, and the absence of political choice. When nearly everyone despises the Palestinian Authority and sees no credible peace process, saying “yes” to Hamas in a survey can be less an endorsement of its methods than a cry of political exhaustion.

The same survey that supposedly proves universal fanaticism also shows deep discontent with all Palestinian leaders, a hunger for change, and an overwhelming desire for an end to the conflict. These are hardly the attitudes of a population committed to perpetual war.

The obsession with proving Palestinian moral failure serves a clear political purpose. It reassures those who believe there is “no partner for peace” and allows Israel’s far-right government to frame collective punishment as self-defence. But the belief that Palestinians must first become politically pure before deserving rights is both cynical and impossible. No people under occupation have ever met such a standard.

The real question is not why some Palestinians still express sympathy for Hamas. The question is: why do so few see any alternative after three decades of failed negotiations and unending occupation? Until that question is faced honestly, no poll result will tell us anything useful about the prospects for peace. It will simply measure the depth of despair that the world continues to ignore.