What Israelis Say About Talking With Hamas

Michael Dawson asks a key question in comments to the previous post on Jimmy Carter chatting up Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus later this week: "What’s Israeli popular opinion on this issue? I thought I saw a poll suggesting most ordinary Israelis favor talking to Hamas. Am I wrong?"

You're right twice over. In July 2007 the Israeli research group Gal Hachadash ("New Wave Research") surveyed 600 Israelis and posed this question: "Do you support or oppose Israel talking to Hamas at the present time regarding a ceasefire, preventing a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, resolving the issue of crossings, creating basic economic conditions, and securing the release of Gilad Shalit? 57% said they supported talking to Hamas, 36% opposed (the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4%).

The question was a bit skewed, however. It was too broad. And once you put in the matters of "preventing a humanitarian disaster" and "securing the release of Gilad Shalit" (the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in Gaza on June 25, 2006, triggering the ongoing low-grade war there), it pretty much assures you of an overwhelmingly favorable response. The mystery is: why wasn't it more overwhelming?

A more recent poll by Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, in late February showed even steeper approval for direct talks with Hamas. "Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit," the paper reported. "Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks." Haaretz did not give relevant details about the survey's methods--how many people were questioned or by what means and with what margin of error. But it noted that Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks.

Still, the numbers are convincing enough to draw a few conclusions: Israelis don;t think that a policy of shunning Hamas is working. They're tired of the war with Hamas, tired of Hamas' attacks and, just as likely, of seeing Israeli soldiers dying in incursions into Gaza. Naturally, they're tired of the fact that no progress is being made in Shalit's release.

There seems to be a divide between what Israeli voters want and what their elected representatives are delivering from the prisonhouse of their conventional assumptions. That's backed up by the survey numbers, too: Likud voters (the Likud Party being Israel's more right-wing, and these days reactionary, party of Benjamin Netanyahu) are more moderate than their representatives in the Knesset, the Israeli legislature: 48% support direct talks with Hamas. Among Kadima members, the center-right party of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, 55% support direct talks, and 72% do among Labor Party supporters.