How many times have you heard well-meaning progressives say Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people? Indeed, less than two weeks after the October 7^th massacre—the worst mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust—President Biden falsely said, “The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.”

The truth: The majority of Palestinians in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) supported Hamas’s October 7 massacre and more than a million (48%) support “armed struggle” to end the “occupation.”

In fact, the Palestinians have a long history of supporting Hamas. Back in 2006, Hamas won Palestinian legislative election, the last time Palestinians held elections. Little has changed. While recent polls show support for Hamas falling, Palestinians still support their primary goal—elimination of the Jewish state.

Research through 2024 shows the overwhelming majority of Palestinians supported—and still support—Hamas’s attack on and kidnapping of mostly Jewish civilians, though, astoundingly, most (89%) deny Hamas’s atrocities. Thousands of Palestinian “civilians” eagerly took part in the massacre, and fourteen months later, many more thousands turned out to mock Israeli hostages during their release.

Ordinary Palestinians also happily assisted Hamas by hiding Israeli hostages and Hamas’s terrorist tunnels and hideouts. No wonder Liri Albag, an Israeli who was held hostage in a private Gazan home and recently released, reported ruefully that Gaza consists of “two million terrorists.”

Moreover, research shows that even those who don’t support Hamas do support the group’s Islamist ideology and its terrorist methods.

Movements around the world, on campus and off, media globally, and politicians who excuse the Palestinians for their brutal dictators, are simply ignoring the current of hateful values that courses widely and powerfully through Palestinian society.

It’s time politicians, media, social movements and the American public understand and accept the fact that Hamas speaks and acts for the vast majority of Palestinians. Make no mistake, the Palestinians are Hamas. Hamas are the Palestinians.

Palestinians’ support for Hamas goes back decades. In 2006, Palestinian voters elected Hamas to power with 44.45% of the vote, giving them a majority of seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

A year later, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority (PA). But whereas several Arab states experienced rebellions and revolutions in the past decade, Hamas has encountered little popular resistance to its rule of Gaza.

After the October 7^th massacre, support for the terrorist group increased. According to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) conducted in December 2023, 43% of Palestinians expressed support for Hamas. In contrast, Fatah, the second most popular faction had just 17% support. A subsequent poll conducted in September 2024 showed that even after nearly a year of witnessing and suffering the effects of war with Israel, Palestinians continued to support Hamas more than any other faction.

Even Palestinians who don’t support Hamas very much support their ideology and methods. Indeed, a survey by researchers at Oxford University found that 98% of Gazans said they were religious and almost as many said they viewed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as religious, not political—exactly as Hamas.

Furthermore, polls show that Palestinians in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria broadly support terrorism as a means to end the “occupation” and achieve independence—just like Hamas.

These polls also reveal that more than half of Palestinians want Israel to be replaced by one single Palestinian state governed under Islamic law—just as Hamas.

Palestinians broadly support the October 7^th massacre. The December 2023 poll by PCPSR showed that 72% of Palestinians supported Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7^th massacre. The effects of war since then have eroded Palestinians’ support for this decision, yet the September 2024 poll showed that 54% of Palestinians still supported it.

Palestinians enthusiastically participate in Hamas’s atrocities against Israel. In fact, an IDF assessment released in August 2024 revealed that more than 2,000 Palestinians who invaded Israel from Gaza on October 7^th were not Hamas members—many were mere “civilian” terrorists.

These “civilians” stripped corpses of jewelry and valuables. They took bodies and body parts of the dead, which they tried to sell, including the head of IDF Sergeant Adir Tahar, which the IDF found in a Gaza ice cream shop.

Palestinian civilians went into a maniacal frenzy when hostages were kidnapped into Gaza, surrounding the vehicles used to carry the hostages, shouting “death to the Jews.” Similarly, more than a year later, Palestinian “civilians” cheered and jeered as Hamas mockingly paraded hostages prior to their release.

When the coffins of the Bibas children, who were murdered with bare hands, were paraded before civilian mobs through the streets of Gaza, it wasn’t just Hamas presiding, but also members and supporters of other Palestinian factions, including the PLO’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Islamic Jihad.

Furthermore, some hostages were held in civilian homes, including female soldiers, who were used as slaves, forced to cook and clean for Palestinian families. Liri Albag, who was released last January, for example, was forced to clean toilets for a family and cook food that she was forbidden to eat. She subsisted on scraps, and was only allowed to take a shower after 37 days.

Palestinian civilians also gladly assisted Hamas during the war by hiding their terrorist infrastructure in civilian buildings—schools, hospitals, mosques, even children’s bedrooms and playgrounds.

Just as the Nazis had their willing executioners, civilians who eagerly participated in the extermination of Jews, Hamas has its own, who enthusiastically took part in the October 7^th massacre and have continued to assist and cheer on the terrorist group.

Progressives cannot deny that Hamas and the Palestinian public are virtually indistinguishable. No matter how well-meaning, they cannot deny that the Palestinians elected Hamas to govern them. They cannot deny the research that shows broad support among the Palestinians for Hamas, their ideology and their methods—nor the research that reveals overwhelming Palestinian support for the October 7^th massacre. Finally, they cannot deny that even as Hamas’s popularity fades, Palestinian civilians continue to support Hamas’s goals, ideology and terrorist methods.

Please make the point when speaking with family, friends, colleagues—or in letters to the editor: Those who assert that Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people are either fooling themselves or trying to gaslight you, contrary to all factual evidence.

If you agree we need to spread this truth, please use your email browser to forward this Hotline issue to fellow lovers of Israel—and encourage them to join us by subscribing to the Hotline at no charge.

Best regards,
Jason Shvili, Contributing Editor
Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME)

P.S.      Too often, American citizens take comfort in their insulation from Islamist violence roiling the Middle East, as well as cities in Europe. But the jihadists are clear that fighting Jews and Israel is just the beginning. At rallies in Iran—and increasingly in the U.S.—the crowds scream, “Death to Israel, Death to America.” They understand that Israel is just the tip of the spear of Western Civilization—because Israel was the birthplace of so many Western values. Today the Jewish state stands as one of the strongest democracies in the world—a defender of liberty and enemy of oppressive Middle East dictatorships and terrorism. I hope you’ll agree that we supporters of the Israel-U.S. relationship need to speak out. FLAME’s new hasbarah—explanatory message—“Israel’s War Is America’s War”—describes how Israel massively defends United States interests in the Middle East and how Israel represents a roadblock to Islamic expansion worldwide. Finally, it explains why the recent U.S. foreign policy of soft diplomacy and appeasement of Iran has failed consistently. Please review this convincing, fact-based editorial, which FLAME intends to publish to millions—in leading social media, as well as in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Tampa Bay Times, Denver Post and Los Angeles Times. This piece will also be sent to all members of Congress, the President and Vice President. If you agree that this kind of public relations effort on Israel’s behalf is critical, I urge you to support us with a donation.

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