I wanted to bring Daniel Gordis’s analysis of the results of a recent, post-October 7 poll of Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank to your attention. If nothing else it illustrates how unrealistic a “two state solution” has become.
Mr. Gordis observes:
These are the results of the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December 2023. The period leading up to the poll witnessed the launch of Hamas’ October the 7th offensive against Israeli towns and military bases bordering the Gaza Strip and the Israeli launch of the current ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Video images circulating in the international and Israeli media show that some Hamas fighters have committed attacks against Israeli civilians, including women and children, and took many of them hostages. International and Palestinian reports reported that thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed by Israeli arial and tank bombardment. Israeli attacks targeted Palestinian hospitals, public buildings, and most other civilian infrastructure including tens of thousands of homes, with many neighborhoods leveled completely to the ground. In the meanwhile, in the West Bank, the Israeli army blocked or restricted Palestinian access to main roads while settler attacks increased against vulnerable towns and villages in various parts of the B and C areas.
To ensure the safety of our field researchers in the Gaza Strip, interviews with the residents were conducted during the ceasefire, which saw Palestinian women and children released from Israeli prisons in exchange for women and children held by Hamas.
The sample size of this poll is 1231 adults, of whom 750 were interviewed face to face in the West Bank and 481 in the Gaza Strip in 121 randomly selected locations. The sample is representative of the residents of the two areas.
Some interesting things were revealed in the poll. There is a substantial discrepancy of opinion between people who live in the West Bank and those who live in Gaza about Hamas, with confidence in Hamas being inversely proportional to how close to it they are. They don’t believe that Hamas has been committing war crimes but they believe the Israelis have. Support for the Palestinian Authority is minuscule.
Since the PA is the only prospective “partner” in negotiating a two state solution Palestinian opinion provides a convincing case that a “two state solution” will be unrealistic for the foreseeable future.
Update
John Mearsheimer reaches the same conclusion as I have following a somewhat different route:
I don’t believe a two-state solution is a realistic possibility. Certainly after what happened on October 7, and what has subsequently happened, there’s not going to be a two-state solution. What the Israelis are determined to do is create a Greater Israel, and that Greater Israel includes Gaza, the West Bank, and what we used to call Green Line Israel — Israel as it existed before the 1967 War. And the problem that the Israelis face is that there are approximately 7.3 million Israeli Jews in Greater Israel. And there are approximately 7.3 million Palestinians inside of Greater Israel. And that creates huge problems, because they can’t have a meaningful democracy when there are probably slightly more Palestinians than Israeli Jews. The Israeli government was unwilling to move towards a two-state solution regardless of what happened on October 7, but certainly after October 7, that’s not going to happen.
