By: Tzirel Rosenblatt – Jewish Voice News

In a sobering reflection of deepening divisions within Palestinian society and the ongoing unraveling of U.S.-brokered efforts to secure a lasting peace, a new survey has revealed a striking surge in popular support for Hamas — even amid the group’s brutal internal crackdowns and its catastrophic governance in Gaza. According to a report that appeared on Wednesday at The Algemeiner, the findings expose the extent to which anti-Israel sentiment, mistrust of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and anger at perceived Western interference have reshaped the Palestinian political landscape nearly two years after the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities.

The poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) and released this week, indicates that 60 percent of Palestinians — including 66 percent in the West Bank and 51 percent in Gaza — are now satisfied with Hamas’s “performance in the current war.” As The Algemeiner reported, this marks one of the highest levels of support for the Islamist group in recent years, despite — or perhaps because of — its continued violence against both Israelis and Palestinians.

The results come as President Trump’s postwar peace plan faces new strain following multiple ceasefire violations and growing skepticism on both sides. The Algemeiner report noted that the findings will likely complicate Washington’s efforts to enforce the terms of the fragile truce, which calls for Hamas’s disarmament and its exclusion from any future governing role in Gaza.

The PCPSR survey’s most striking revelation, according to The Algemeiner report, is that Hamas’s popularity has increased significantly across both territories, even as it continues to rule Gaza through intimidation and bloodshed. Nearly 36 percent of respondents said their support for Hamas had risen over the past two years — a period marked by economic collapse, famine-like conditions, and political isolation.

“The conclusion from these numbers,” the poll stated, “is that the past two years have led to greater support for Hamas rather than the opposite.” That trend, The Algemeiner report observed, calls attention to the depth of despair and radicalization now gripping Palestinian society, where support for Hamas has surged the most dramatically.

This pattern defies conventional logic. As The Algemeiner report highlighted, Hamas’s governance record in Gaza has been defined by systemic corruption, diversion of humanitarian aid, and the suppression of dissent. In recent weeks, as part of a sweeping “stabilization campaign,” Hamas operatives have publicly executed alleged collaborators and beaten protesters who questioned its authority.

Videos circulating on social media — verified by independent journalists and cited in The Algemeiner report — show Palestinian civilians being dragged through the streets by armed Hamas fighters. Yet paradoxically, many Palestinians continue to view Hamas as a “resistance movement” rather than a terror group, associating its violence with national pride rather than tyranny.

If Hamas’s ascent reveals a turn toward militancy, the decline of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority signals the collapse of the moderate alternative envisioned by Western policymakers. The PCPSR poll shows 80 percent of Gazans now calling for Abbas’s resignation, with more than half describing him as corrupt.

In a hypothetical presidential contest between Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Abbas, 63 percent of respondents said they would vote for Meshaal — a staggering figure that highlights the PA’s waning legitimacy. As The Algemeiner reported, Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank, would win just 30 percent of the vote in a legislative election, compared with 44 percent for Hamas.

These figures confirm what Israeli analysts have long warned: that the Palestinian political sphere has devolved into an ideological vacuum where Hamas thrives by default, positioning itself as the only force capable of confronting Israel. According to The Algemeiner report, many Palestinians perceive the PA as “a subcontractor for Israel’s security interests,” its cooperation with Jerusalem viewed as betrayal rather than diplomacy.

The poll arrives at a critical juncture for the U.S.-backed Trump Peace Initiative, a 20-point framework intended to stabilize Gaza and lay the groundwork for regional normalization. But The Algemeiner reported that Palestinians have greeted the plan with near-universal skepticism: 62 percent said they believe it will fail to end the war, and 70 percent doubt it will produce an independent Palestinian state within five years.

As The Algemeiner report noted, the plan’s central requirement — Hamas’s full disarmament and exclusion from future governance — faces overwhelming opposition. Nearly 70 percent of Palestinians (80 percent in Judea and Samaria and 55 percent in Gaza) said they reject the notion of Hamas surrendering its weapons. Even more — 68 percent — oppose the deployment of an armed Arab peacekeeping force in Gaza, a cornerstone of the U.S.-led proposal.

A majority also opposes the creation of a professional, nonpartisan administrative council to manage Gaza’s civilian affairs — an initiative meant to sideline both Hamas and the PA. In effect, The Algemeiner report observed, Palestinians are signaling a collective refusal to endorse any plan that diminishes Hamas’s influence or aligns too closely with Washington’s strategic interests.

Perhaps most troubling is what the poll reveals about the moral climate within Palestinian society. When asked about Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — 53 percent of Palestinians said the attack was “the correct decision.” More than 80 percent rejected evidence of Hamas atrocities, including the killing of children and rape of women, dismissing the documented horrors as fabrications of “foreign propaganda.”

As The Algemeiner report called attention to, these figures reflect a growing denialism fueled by decades of radical indoctrination and the suppression of dissenting media within Palestinian territories. Analysts told the publication that such attitudes illustrate not merely political allegiance but a profound cultural shift — one in which violence has become moralized, and martyrdom celebrated as a national virtue.

The poll also found that 49 percent of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and 30 percent in Gaza believe that “armed struggle” is the most effective path toward independence, far surpassing those who favored negotiation or peaceful resistance. This persistent valorization of violence, The Algemeiner wrote, “illustrates the enduring failure of international diplomacy to dislodge the myth of resistance from the Palestinian psyche.”

While the PCPSR is one of the region’s most respected polling institutions, Israeli intelligence officials have cautioned against accepting such data at face value. As The Algemeiner reported in August, the IDF uncovered documents showing that Hamas operatives in Gaza had been manipulating public-opinion surveys, using intimidation and disinformation to exaggerate support for the Oct. 7 atrocities and conceal public resentment.

Given the group’s stranglehold on media and civic institutions, the true extent of its popular backing remains uncertain. However, as The Algemeiner report pointed out, the perception of rising support can be just as powerful as reality. By projecting the illusion of invincibility, Hamas reinforces its own narrative of legitimacy — and discourages potential challengers, both domestic and international.

This manipulation of data and discourse is part of a broader information war. Hamas’s propaganda machinery — amplified by sympathetic social media accounts and radical influencers abroad — continues to portray its war with Israel as a “defensive struggle,” obscuring its role in igniting and perpetuating the conflict. As The Algemeiner report observed, such messaging not only radicalizes Palestinians but also shapes international opinion, sowing confusion in Western media about culpability and cause.

For Israel, the implications of this rising pro-Hamas sentiment are grave. The Algemeiner report quoted regional analysts who warned that the poll demonstrates how “de-radicalization is no longer a viable short-term goal.” The pervasive hostility toward Israel, reinforced by Hamas’s terrorist branding, will likely complicate any effort to restore calm, even if the current ceasefire endures.

Hamas’s increased popularity also undercuts the prospects of meaningful cooperation with the PA or with international mediators. It empowers extremist factions elsewhere, from the Jenin refugee camp to Hezbollah’s outposts in southern Lebanon, encouraging a broader coalition of anti-Israel militancy.

Moreover, the poll reveals the depth of Palestinian cynicism toward U.S. policy, even under Trump’s pro-Israel administration. This skepticism could constrain Washington’s diplomatic leverage, particularly as it seeks to rally Arab partners — including Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — to participate in Gaza’s reconstruction and security oversight.

As The Algemeiner concluded in its analysis, the PCPSR findings capture the bleak paradox of the postwar Middle East: the more Hamas devastates Gaza, the stronger it becomes in the Palestinian imagination. The more it murders and represses, the more it embodies defiance against Israel and the West.

This inversion of moral reality — where atrocity is mistaken for heroism — poses a daunting challenge to any peace initiative. “The great tragedy,” one Israeli analyst told The Algemeiner, “is that the Palestinians have become hostages not only to Hamas’s rule but to the ideology that sustains it.”

Whether Trump’s peace plan can overcome that ideological stranglehold remains uncertain. The survey’s findings suggest that a majority of Palestinians reject the fundamental premises of coexistence — disarmament, reconciliation, and state-building. For now, the political terrain remains dominated by rage and radicalization, leaving moderates marginalized and peace as elusive as ever.

As The Algemeiner report observed, the data “offer a mirror to the moral abyss into which Palestinian society has descended.” It is a mirror that should give pause not only to diplomats and policymakers but to anyone still clinging to the belief that this conflict can be resolved without confronting the toxic narratives that continue to sustain it.

Until that reckoning occurs, the poll’s numbers — and the ideology they represent — will stand as a chilling reminder: even in defeat, Hamas’s grip on the Palestinian mind remains tragically unbroken.