Polls of Gazans show Hamas has enough support to influence plans for future government

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More than 200 days into Israel’s devastating war in Gaza, Hamas continues to wield sufficient influence in the strip to threaten any future governance scheme it does not endorse, warns a Palestinian pollster who has done pathbreaking work to assess attitudes in the region.

War with Israel initially won new support for Hamas in Gaza. But the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research – which has operated for 20 years with backing from the European Union, the Ford Foundation and other government and Western institutional sponsors – has completed three polls in the region since Oct. 7, and found those numbers have now fallen to roughly where they were before the war, when only 29 per cent of Gazans expressed trust in the militant group.

It is a modest level of support – but enough to pose a formidable obstacle to any entity that attempts to govern in place of Hamas.

One of the key questions for Gaza is what comes next – and who will control the region once the war ends. Experts, negotiators and intellectuals have proposed a range of ideas. Perhaps an international coalition can take control. Perhaps Arab states can take a more direct role. Perhaps Israel will restore its military occupation of Gaza.

But Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, warns that any effort to impose governance on Gaza must confront the desires of Gazans themselves. (The group has continued to monitor public sentiment during the war, equipping teams with tablets to conduct surveys in a time of violence.)

“Gazans will not co-operate with an alternative government if Hamas does not want them to co-operate,” he said. “You can use force if you want – as the Israelis are doing. But then you will find that people will fight back, as Hamas is currently doing in Gaza.”

More than 34,000 people have died in Gaza in the war, according to locally-gathered statistics, with Israel claiming that roughly a third were associated with Hamas. Israeli forces say they have killed numerous Hamas commanders and destroyed considerable portions of its operational infrastructure, including tunnels and underground command posts.

A less potent Hamas could open the way to a more permanent solution, says Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli politician.

Hamas “has not disappeared. But it is weaker as a spoiler in future negotiations. And until Oct. 7, Hamas was a major spoiler for every attempt to negotiate peace,” said Mr. Beilin, who was Israel’s lead negotiator at the Oslo Accords.

His vision for the future is one where Hamas is replaced by an interim power arrangement backed by Western and Arab countries that would continue until a new Palestinian state can be created.

Hamas itself may actually “welcome an international force for some time,” said Ayman Yousef, professor of international relations and conflict resolution at Arab American University.

“They should manage humanitarian assistance and the flow of humanitarian goods and services to Gaza,” he said, particularly as Hamas seeks to rebuild its rule. “One outcome of this war is weakening the military power of Hamas,” he said, creating an impetus to augment its political authority.

But despite that weakening, Hamas has continued to show that it still maintains the ability to monitor and shape what is happening in the region. Israeli soldiers are still being killed in Gaza. And in late March, Hamas arrested six people it accused of being Palestinian Authority security forces who accompanied an aid shipment into Gaza.

Mr. Shikaki’s surveys have shown that Gazans would support two governance options over rule by Hamas: elections or a national unity government made up of representatives of both Hamas and Fatah, the party co-founded by Yasser Arafat that still dominates West Bank politics.

History and political enmities create obstacles to both of those options.

After nearly two decades of a sometimes-deadly rivalry, representatives of Hamas and Fatah did meet in late February, at a summit in Moscow, which suggested progress toward a unified front. Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said at the time that he had “never seen the atmosphere so close to unity as it is today.”

“We are talking about an initiation of a process that hopefully will lead eventually to complete unity within the ranks of a unified Palestinian leadership,” he said at the time.

But little has happened since, Sabri Saidam, an advisor to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, told The Globe and Mail in an interview. A “political stalemate” has taken hold, he said.

On elections, meanwhile, Palestinian authorities have long claimed an openness to reopening polls. But the war in Gaza now gives Israel far more direct influence over any possible vote in the region. The vow by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to “wipe them off the face of the Earth” suggests little willingness by Israel to bless any Hamas participation in future governance of Gaza.

Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, too, have no real communication with current Israeli leadership, said Mr. Saidam, who is deputy secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee.

“I don’t think any Palestinian would ever accept dealing with Netanyahu,” he said, adding: “He has blood on his hands.”

The best hope for a more imminent solution, he said, lies with Saudi Arabia, which has not closed off the possibility of normalizing relations with Israel. In 2020, four other Arab countries normalized relations with Israel – UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – although without securing major concessions for Palestinians.

The U.S., however, has advocated for any agreement with Saudi Arabia to address that issue.

“In order to move forward with normalization, two things will be required: Calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday in Riyadh, where he met with Saudi leaders. He is expected to meet with Mr. Netanyahu later this week.

Palestinian leaders are in regular contact with the Saudis, said Mr. Saidam. He argues that the bloodshed in Gaza means the calculus of “moral responsibility” has changed for Saudi leaders to consider “brotherly relations between Palestinians and Arabs” in any deal with Israel.

For Israeli leaders, meanwhile, he said, achieving peace should be worth any concessions it will have to make.

“If Israel wants to live in peace, then it has to understand that normalization would come at a price. And the price is worth paying,” he said.