She Polled Gazans on Oct. 6. Here’s What She Found.

<p>The day before Hamas’s horrific attacks in Israel, the Arab Barometer, one of the leading polling operations in the Arab world, was finishing up <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/what-palestinians-really-think-hamas">a survey of public opinion in Gaza</a>.</p><p>The result is a remarkable snapshot of how Gazans felt about Hamas and hoped the conflict with Israel would end. And what Gazans were thinking on Oct. 6 matters, now that they’re all living with the brutal consequences of what Hamas did on Oct. 7.</p><p>So I invited on the show Amaney Jamal, the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a co-founder and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer, so she could walk me through the results.</p><p>And, it’s a complicated picture. The people of Gaza, like any other population, have diverse beliefs. But one thing is clear: Hamas was not very popular.</p><p>As Jamal and her co-author write: “The Hamas-led government may be uninterested in peace, but it is empirically wrong for Israeli political leaders to accuse all Gazans of the same.”</p><p>Mentioned:</p><p><a href="https://pcpsr.org/en/node/944" target="_blank">Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research Public Opinion Poll</a></p><p><a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah" target="_blank">Washington Institute Poll</a></p><p>Book Recommendations:</p><p><a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501768408/the-one-state-reality/#bookTabs=1" target="_blank">The One State Reality</a> edited by Michael Barnett, Nathan J. Brown, Marc Lynch and Shibley</p><p><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/arabs-and-israelis-9781350321380/" target="_blank">Arabs and Israelis</a> by Abdel Monem Said Aly, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki</p><p><a href="https://iupress.org/9780253220707/a-history-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-second-edition/" target="_blank">A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict</a> by Mar