Why do Palestinians massively support Hamas?

According to a new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Polling Research, the majority of Palestinians want Hamas to retain control of the Gaza Strip after its war against Israel ends.

According to the organization, "Gazans’ support for continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip has increased to more than 50 percent,” which “is a 14-point rise.”

According to the Palestinian organization, this is due to “the magnitude of the suffering in the Gaza Strip, this seems to be the most counterintuitive finding of the entire poll.” This argument has been used more than once to try and convince Israel to stop the war, even from friends of the Jewish State such as Elon Musk, who a few months ago declared that for every Palestinian who dies, he fears that several terrorists will emerge.

However, according to the testimony from Dor Shahar, a former Gazan living in Israel who converted to Judaism, the issue is actually related to the indoctrination to which they are subjected from a young age. Hatred of Jews has been running through their veins for as long as they can remember, no matter what Israelis do or do not do.

Shahar recalled during the interview that once a well-dressed man entered the classroom of the school he attended in Gaza, and “told us that he was going to give us a special class (...) But he started saying that Jews are murderers (...) ...) that they had stolen our grandparents' land, He said all of Israel is Palestine, that blood must be shed to get our land back, that the Jews had once been Muslims and became infidels, that Jews have three legs, and that the most important commandment is to kill a Jew."

Indoctrination is not only experienced at school but also in one's own home. Shahar said that he used to play soccer with Israeli soldiers, and one day, one of them gave him a piece of candy. When he returned home with the wrapper in his hand, he asked his father if he could buy him more, but he could have never imagined his father's response. "He got very angry. He threatened me and he told me not to take another piece of candy from the Jews because they could poison the candy," he said.

Naturally, if you combine indoctrination in Jew hatred with a war in which Israel has to respond harshly against Hamas after October 7, the survey results are not surprising. Therefore, it is a very complex task to make Gazans understand that they are the same ones who govern them, those who have put them in that situation. In fact, during a conversation recently with Mohammed Massad, a former Palestinian terrorist who currently lives in Israel, he said that Hamas terrorists launch rockets from buildings in Gaza and do not allow the people who live there to leave the area. In other words, it reconfirms that Hamas uses civilians as human shields.

The population in Gaza and the West Bank is so blinded by hatred that they even support a terrorist organization that oppresses and murders them. “99% of Gazans support terrorism,” Dor Shahar said in that interview. He stressed that Palestinians who wanted to live in peace and freedom left Gaza.

"At the age of three, I remember going with my mother to the market to buy candy and one day I saw a head rolling on the ground like a ball, which belonged to someone suspected of collaborating with Israel," Shahar said. He also claimed that he had to witness how "they cut people into pieces," or how "they tied people to light poles and electrocuted them," or how "they tied their legs to a vehicle and dragged them until they died." They were all considered collaborators of the Zionist enemy.

The survey was conducted with 1,580 adults in early March. It found that "almost all Palestinians think Israel is committing war crimes," while the vast majority believe that Hamas is not. This figure has remained stable throughout the war. This is another unsurprising result, given that in Gaza and the West Bank, there is no freedom of expression, and everything that is broadcast is controlled by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

In addition, the organization claimed that Palestinian support for Hamas' actions during the course of the war "remains stable at 70%, with a slightly higher percentage of satisfaction being offered by those living in the West Bank."

"Support for Hamas, while indeed stable for the total, has in fact dropped in the West Bank by 10 points, from 85 percent three months ago to 75 percent today," the survey stated. "The opposite happened in the Gaza Strip: satisfaction with Hamas increased by 10 points,” it added.

While support for the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 against Israel fell 11 points in the West Bank, compared to three months ago, the numbers increased by 14 points among those living in Gaza, the organization said. The numbers may vary as we move further away in time from the day of the massacre, but the truth is that the percentage of support for Hamas is still too high.

As the war approaches its sixth month, a growing number of Palestinians in Gaza want Hamas to win, which implies an increase of about a third since the last survey was carried out in December. In fact, 38% of Gazans say they expect the war to continue despite American and international efforts to sign a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

As for the demands from the United States and other countries for a ceasefire, we must remember what Mohammed Massad said in his interview. “The West does not understand what is happening” in the Middle East. It must "support Israel" to eliminate Hamas. In the future, it will need to support the Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of the 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas, who justified the Holocaust by arguing that the "Jews did business with money." Massad further suggested that without new Palestinian leadership, there will never be peace.

"When asked who is most likely to rule the Gaza Strip when the war ends, 59 percent in total said Hamas, including 63 percent of those in the West Bank and 52 percent in Gaza," the organization reported.

Support for the "return of Hamas" in Gaza "reaches 63 percent, with a 7-point increase in the Gaza Strip compared to only a 2-point increase in the West Bank," the organization added.

This data is surely due to the corruption within the PA and the hatred that reigns among the Palestinian population. Although the leaders of the Palestinian terrorist organization have billions of dollars and live in luxury abroad, far from Gaza, they are seen as more combative against 'the Zionist enemy.'

Last December, only 38% of Gaza residents expressed support for Hamas continuing to control Gaza, while 75% of West Bank residents supported that idea.

While support for Hamas fell 11 points in the West Bank compared to three months ago, both groups of Palestinians still overwhelmingly support the October 7 massacre.

"The change in the preferences of the Gazans, with a 14-point increase among them selecting Hamas today, is one of the most intriguing findings of the current poll," the organization concluded.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research was 'intrigued' by some of the survey results. However, if we take into account the indoctrination to which Palestinians are subjected since childhood, which leads them to value death over life, even their own; to prefer destruction over construction; to dehumanize the Jews; and prefer war over peace, the results are not surprising. Hamas would not be Hamas without the support of a racist, violent population with genocidal desires.