Neither Fatah nor Hamas: Arab News/YouGov poll shows Palestinians want nothing to do with their leadership

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Palestinian skepticism has been fueled by the policies of the right-wing governments of Benjamin Netanyahu (L), who since 1996 has served 15 years as prime minister. (AP/File Photo)
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Updated 20 May 2023
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Neither Fatah nor Hamas: Arab News/YouGov poll shows Palestinians want nothing to do with their leadership

  • Survey released on 75th anniversary of the Nakba reveals broad sense of despair among Palestinian population
  • Overwhelming 86% respondents believe current Israeli government is not serious about signing a peace deal

LONDON: A new Arab News/YouGov survey has identified a broad sense of despair among many Palestinians who feel trapped between an Israeli government they believe has no interest in forging peace and a Palestinian leadership they do not trust to successfully negotiate a deal with Israel.

The survey, titled “Prospects, Peace and Politics: Where do Palestinians stand?,” was published on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba.

Unsurprisingly, the survey finds that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians — 86 percent of the 693 who expressed a view — believe that the current Israeli government is not serious about signing a peace deal, a prospect about which only 14 percent remain optimistic.

Such skepticism has been fueled by the policies of the right-wing governments of Benjamin Netanyahu, who since 1996 has served 15 years as prime minister, over four separate terms in office.

After the formation in December 2022 of the latest Israeli coalition government, widely regarded as the most right-wing the country has seen, Netanyahu’s Likud party unnerved even its US allies by announcing plans to “advance and develop settlements in all parts of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev Desert, the Golan Heights and Judea and Samaria (West Bank).”

Haaretz, the left-leaning Israeli newspaper, described the new government as “the most extreme right-wing, racist, homophobic and theocratic coalition in Israel’s history” — an impression Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich did nothing to dispel with a speech in March in which he declared: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history.”

In January this year protests broke out across Israel against plans by the coalition to reform the judiciary, widely seen as a move designed to end judicial review of the government’s policies.

Such is the skepticism among Palestinians about the intentions of the Israelis that 66 percent still see no hope for peace even in the unlikely event of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing regime being replaced by a left-wing government.

The last time the left had any real influence on Israeli politics was during the heyday of the Meretz party, which between 1992 and 1996 held 12 seats and was the third largest party in the Knesset. Meretz won no seats in Israel’s 2022 elections.

Regardless, the survey shows that there is little confidence among Palestinians in any Israeli government, whether right or left. Only 15 percent believe a right-wing government is likely to sign a peace deal, rising only slightly to 19 percent in the case of any future left-wing administration.

More surprisingly, perhaps, 63 percent of Palestinians feel unrepresented by either Hamas or Fatah, with the two factions attracting the confidence of only 11 percent and 19 percent respectively.




Palestinians carry the body of Shadi al-Shurafa who was killed by Israeli army fire on July 27 and his body was returned today, during a funeral procession in Beita village in the occupied West Bank, on August 10, 2021. (AFP/File Photo)

US-Palestinian journalist, author and media consultant Ramzy Baroud told Arab News that the results of its YouGov poll are “consistent with the reality on the ground. Indeed, this lack of leadership on the part of the Palestinian Authority, coupled with the factional divide, has pushed Palestinians to mobilize around different sets of values and a different kind of leadership.”

The slow formation of this new leadership, “emerging at a grassroots community level throughout occupied Palestine and among Palestinian prisoners in Israel,” was “completely bypassing the Palestinian Authority and also the factional nature of the various Palestinian political groups.”

This process, he believes, “will eventually lead to a degree of centralized leadership, which reflects the growing unity among Palestinians at a popular level.”

Meanwhile, he added, “despite the lack of truly representative leadership, the Palestinian people continue to communicate, time and again, that only an end to the Israeli occupation and the dismantlement of the apartheid regime can start the process of achieving true peace and justice in Palestine.”

Hamas, which was founded in 1987 after the first intifada, holds a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority, but maintains a military wing and is designated a terrorist organization by the US and some other states, including the UK. 

Fatah is currently the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council. Founded in 1959 by Yasser Arafat and others as the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Fatah had a long history of terrorism but in the late 1980s renounced violence in favor of pursuing a diplomatic path toward a two-state solution.

The poll shows that only 25 percent of Palestinians believe the current Palestinian leadership is capable of successfully negotiating a peace deal with Israel.  A whopping 75 percent do not. 

“Palestinians lost trust in their leadership years ago,” Baroud said.

“This lack of trust is intrinsically linked to the endemic corruption of the PA but also to the total failure of the current Palestinian leadership to achieve a single meaningful political victory that could potentially renew the Palestinian people’s faith in the so-called peace process.”

In a frank interview with Al Arabiya in 2020, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the US, spoke of his sadness at the failure of the Palestinian leadership to find the path to peace over many years. He was responding to the outright rejection by Palestinian leaders of the declaration of cooperation between the US, Israel, and the UAE, which was described by one Palestinian official as “a poisoned stab in the back of the Palestinian people and an attempt to try and get around international legitimacy.”

This, said Prince Bandar, “was truly painful to hear. This low level of discourse is not what we expect from officials who seek to gain global support for their cause, and their transgression against the Gulf states’ leadership with this reprehensible discourse is entirely unacceptable.”

It was, he added, “not surprising to see how quick these leaders are to use terms like ‘treason,’ ‘betrayal,’ and ‘back-stabbing,’ because these are their ways in dealing with each other.

“Efforts in the past years would have been better focused on the Palestinian cause, peace initiatives and protecting the rights of the Palestinian people to reach a point where this just, albeit robbed, cause can finally see the light — and when I say robbed, I mean both by Israel and Palestinian leaders equally.”

When asked for their views about why all previous peace talks and initiatives have failed, Israel’s continuing policy of intimidation, settlements and annexation emerges as the number one perceived cause, followed closely by US bias toward Israel.

This bias was especially evident during the presidency of Donald Trump. In November 2019 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the US no longer considered Israel settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, reversing a position held by the US since a 1978 legal ruling by the State Department.

However, in February this year Antony Blinken, the current US secretary of state, issued a statement condemning Israeli moves to accelerate its illegal settlement program. The US, he said, was “deeply troubled by Israel’s decision yesterday to advance reportedly nearly 10,000 settlement units and to begin a process to retroactively legalize nine outposts in the West Bank that were previously illegal under Israeli law.”

He added: “We strongly oppose such unilateral measures, which exacerbate tensions and undermine the prospects for a negotiated two-state solution.”

Despite the lack of confidence in Hamas and Fatah, those polled were less inclined to lay the blame for the failure of peace talks on the activities of Palestinian armed militias.

 


In Syria, a Shiite shrine and community navigate a changed landscape

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In Syria, a Shiite shrine and community navigate a changed landscape

It’s more than just religious devotion that the golden-domed shrine became known for during Syria’s prolonged civil war
With such a legacy, local Shiite community leaders and members are now navigating a dramatically altered political landscape around Sayyida Zeinab and beyond

SAYYIDA ZEINAB, Syria: At the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, rituals of faith unfold: worshippers kneel in prayer, visitors raise their palms skyward or fervently murmur invocations as they press their faces against an ornate structure enclosing where they believe the granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad is entombed.

But it’s more than just religious devotion that the golden-domed shrine became known for during Syria’s prolonged civil war.

At the time, the shrine’s protection from Sunni extremists became a rallying cry for some Shiite fighters and Iran-backed groups from beyond Syria’s borders who backed the former government of Bashar Assad. The shrine and the surrounding area, which bears the same name, has emerged as one symbol of how the religious and political increasingly intertwined during the conflict.

An altered landscape after Assad’s ouster

With such a legacy, local Shiite community leaders and members are now navigating a dramatically altered political landscape around Sayyida Zeinab and beyond, after Assad’s December ouster by armed insurgents led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). The complex transition that is underway has left some in Syria’s small Shiite minority feeling vulnerable.

“For Shiites around the world, there’s huge sensitivity surrounding the Sayyida Zeinab Shrine,” said Hussein Al-Khatib. “It carries a lot of symbolism.”

After Assad’s ouster, Al-Khatib joined other Syrian Shiite community members to protect the shrine from the inside. The new security forces guard it from the outside.

“We don’t want any sedition among Muslims,” he said. “This is the most important message, especially in this period that Syria is going through.”

Zeinab is a daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad; she’s especially revered among Shiites as a symbol of steadfastness, patience and courage.

She has several titles, such as the “mother of misfortunes” for enduring tragedies, including the 7th-century killing of her brother, Hussein. His death exacerbated the schism between Islam’s two main sects, Sunni and Shiite, and is mourned annually by Shiites.

Zeinab’s burial place is disputed; some Muslims believe it’s elsewhere. The Syria shrine has drawn pilgrims, including from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. Since Assad’s ouster, however, fewer foreign visitors have come, an economic blow to those catering to them in the area.

The shrine’s locale has faced many attacks

Over the years, the Sayyida Zeinab area has suffered deadly attacks by militants.

In January, state media reported that intelligence officials in Syria’s post-Assad government thwarted a plan by the Daesh group to set off a bomb at the shrine. The announcement appeared to be an attempt by Syria’s new leaders to reassure religious minorities, including those seen as having supported Assad’s former government.

Al-Khatib, who moved his family from Aleppo province to the Sayyida Zeinab area shortly before Assad’s fall, said Assad had branded himself as a protector of minorities. “When killings, mobilization ... and sectarian polarization began,” the narrative “of the regime and its allies was that ‘you, as a Shiite, you as a minority member, will be killed if I fall.’”

The involvement of Sunni militants and some hard-line foreign Shiite fighters fanned sectarian flames, he said.

The Syria conflict began as one of several uprisings against Arab dictators before Assad brutally crushed what started as largely peaceful protests and a civil war erupted. It became increasingly fought along sectarian lines, drew in foreign fighters and became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers on different sides.

Post-Assad, new tensions center on the shrine

Recently, a red flag reading “Oh, Zeinab” that had fluttered from its dome was removed after some disparaged it as a sectarian symbol.

Sheikh Adham Al-Khatib, a representative of followers of the Twelver branch of Shiism in Syria, said such flags “are not directed against anyone,” but that it was agreed to remove it for now to keep the peace.

“We don’t want a clash to happen. We see that ... there’s sectarian incitement, here and there,” he said.

Earlier, Shiite leaders had wrangled with some endowments ministry officials over whether the running of the shrine would stay with the Shiite endowment trustee as it’s been, he said, adding “we’ve rejected” changing the status quo. No response was received before publication to questions sent to a Ministry of Endowments media official.

Adham Al-Khatib and other Shiite leaders recently met with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.

“We’ve talked transparently about some of the transgressions,” he said. “He promised that such matters would be handled but that they require some patience because of the negative feelings that many harbor for Shiites as a result of the war.”

Many, the sheikh said, “are holding the Shiites responsible for prolonging the regime’s life.” This “is blamed on Iran, on Hezbollah and on Shiites domestically,” he said, adding that he believes the conflict was political rather than religious.

Early in the conflict, he said, “our internal Shiite decision was to be neutral for long months.” But, he said, there was sectarian incitement against Shiites by some and argued that “when weapons, kidnappings and killing of civilians started, Shiites were forced to defend themselves.”

Regionally, Assad was backed by Iran and the Shiite militant Lebanese group Hezbollah, whose intervention helped prop up his rule. Most rebels against him were Sunni, as were their patrons in the region.

Besides the shrine’s protection argument, geopolitical interests and alliances were at play as Syria was a key part of Iran’s network of deterrence against Israel.

Emotions can run high; for some, fears persist

Today, rumors and some social media posts can threaten to inflame emotions.

Shrine director Jaaffar Kassem said he received a false video purporting to show the shrine on fire and was flooded with calls about it.

At the shrine, Zaher Hamza said he prays “for safety and security” and the rebuilding of “a modern Syria, where there’s harmony among all and there are no grudges or injustice.”

Is he worried about the shrine? “We’re the ones who are in the protection of Sayyida Zeinab — not the ones who will protect the Sayyida Zeinab,” he replied.

While some Shiites have fled Syria after Assad’s fall, Hamza said he wouldn’t.

“Syria is my country,” he said. “If I went to Lebanon, Iraq or to European countries, I’d be displaced. I’ll die in my country.”

Some are less at ease.

Small groups of women gathered recently at the Sayyida Zeinab courtyard, chatting among themselves in what appeared to be a quiet atmosphere. Among them was Kamla Mohamed.

Early in the war, Mohamed said, her son was kidnapped more than a decade ago by anti-government rebels for serving in the military. The last time she saw him, she added, was on a video where he appeared with a bruised face.

When Assad fell, Mohamed feared for her family.

Those fears were fueled by the later eruption of violence in Syria’s coastal region, where a counteroffensive killed many Alawite civilians — members of the minority sect from which Assad hails and drew support as he ruled over a Sunni majority. Human rights groups reported revenge killings against Alawites; the new authorities said they were investigating.

“We were scared that people would come to us and kill us,” Mohamed said, clutching a prayer bead. “Our life has become full of fear.”

Another Syrian Shiite shrine visitor said she’s been feeling on edge. She spoke on condition she only be identified as Umm Ahmed, or mother of Ahmed, as is traditional, for fear of reprisals against her or her family.

She said, speaking shortly after the coastal violence in March, that she’s thought of leaving the country, but added that there isn’t enough money and she worries that her home would be stolen if she did. Still, “one’s life is the most precious,” she said.

She hopes it won’t come to that.

“Our hope in God is big,” she said. “God is the one protecting this area, protecting the shrine and protecting us.”

UK pledges over $5 million in aid to Gaza

Updated 15 min 12 sec ago
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UK pledges over $5 million in aid to Gaza

  • Announcement follows Britain's freezing of free-trade talks with Israel over its Gaza offensive

LONDON: Britain pledged $5.4 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza, the government said on Wednesday, as its Minister for Development Jenny Chapman visited Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
“The Israeli government’s failure to allow full humanitarian access to aid workers is abhorrent. Far too few trucks are crossing into Gaza,” Chapman said.
“The UK is clear — Israel will not achieve security through prolonging the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Britain on Tuesday paused free trade talks with Israel over its new offensive in Gaza, with foreign minister David Lammy calling for an end to the blockade of aid.
The British Red Cross will receive the new aid package and deliver it through the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Britain said.


Jordanian ambassador visits Nablus field hospital providing medical services for Palestinians

Updated 25 min 31 sec ago
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Jordanian ambassador visits Nablus field hospital providing medical services for Palestinians

  • The facility began operations in September 2023 to enhance medical cooperation between Jordan and Palestine
  • The governor of Nablus said the initiative was a ‘generous gesture’ from Jordan

LONDON: Jordanian Ambassador to Palestine Issam Al-Bdour visited the Jordanian field hospital in Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank, on Wednesday to observe the medical services being provided.

The hospital’s commanding officer briefed Al-Bdour and Nablus Mayor Ghassan Daghlas on the facility’s services provided to residents of Nablus and its environs, the Petra news agency reported.

The ambassador toured the hospital’s various departments and expressed appreciation for the efforts of the Jordanian medical teams and the Jordanian Armed Forces’ role in supporting Palestinians.

The facility began operations in September 2023 to enhance medical cooperation between Jordan and Palestine. It includes clinics for pediatrics, gynecology, internal medicine, surgery, orthopedics, dermatology, and dentistry, as well as operating rooms and intensive care units.

Daghlas described the initiative as a “generous gesture” reflecting the ongoing historical relations between Jordan and Palestine.


Israeli forces encircle two of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals

Updated 51 min 35 sec ago
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Israeli forces encircle two of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals

  • Indonesian hospital and Al-Awda hospital are among the region’s only surviving medical centers
  • Three hospitals and three primary health care centers are within an evacuation zone announced by Israel Friday

Two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week, as Israel pursued its renewed offensive into the devastated Palestinian territory.
The Indonesian hospital and Al-Awda hospital are among the region’s only surviving medical centers. Both have come under fire this week, including shelling at Al-Awda that happened Wednesday as The Associated Press spoke to its director on the phone.
A third hospital, Kamal Adwan, is out of service, its director said, citing Israeli troops and drones in its vicinity.
Israeli authorities issued evacuation orders Friday for large parts of northern Gaza ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed Tuesday.
All three hospitals and three primary health care centers are within the evacuation zone. Israel has not ordered the evacuation of the facilities themselves. Another two hospitals and four primary care centers are within 1,000 meters (yards) of the zone, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization.
Israeli military operations and evacuation orders “are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point,” he said.
Hundreds of attacks on health facilities
Only 20 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functioning, serving the territory’s more than 2 million people, amid continued bombing, rising malnutrition rates, and dwindling medical supplies.
The WHO said hospitals in northern Gaza are “at a serious risk of shutting down completely.” The United Nations agency has documented nearly 700 attacks on health care facilities in Gaza since the start of Israel’s 19-month war against the Hamas militant group.
The Israeli military has raided or laid siege to hospitals throughout the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centers and to hide fighters, though it has only provided evidence for some of its claims. Hamas security men have been seen in hospitals during the war, controlling access to certain areas, and in recent weeks Israel has targeted alleged militants inside health facilities.
Palestinians say the latest attacks on hospitals in the north are part of a larger plan to displace the population to the south and eventually drive them from Gaza.
Israel has vowed to facilitate what it refers to as the voluntary migration of much of Gaza’s population to other countries, which many Palestinians and others view as a plan for forcible expulsion.
Israel wants to “ensure the forced displacement of people from the area” by putting hospitals out of service, said Rami Shourafi, a board member of Al-Awda hospital.
The Indonesian hospital comes under attack
The Indonesian hospital, once the largest in northern Gaza, has been surrounded by Israeli troops, who were positioned about 500 meters (545 yards) away. Drones have hovered above, monitoring any movement, since Sunday, an aid group that supports the hospital said.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating around the hospital and targeting Hamas infrastructure but that troops had not entered the facility and ambulances were allowed to move.
Israeli bulldozers demolished a perimeter wall of the hospital, according to the aid group MERC-Indonesia and a hospital staff member who had since evacuated. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
On Tuesday, airstrikes targeted the hospital’s generators, sparking a fire and damaging its main power supply. The strikes also caused damage to the hospital’s water supply, according to a video posted by MERC-Indonesia. Large flames were seen rising from the area before daybreak. A speaker in the video said the fire was close to the hospital fuel supply, but firefighters controlled the flames.
At least one staff member was killed, according to WHO, which said those who remained in the hospital were in urgent need of water and food. The UN said it was working to transfer remaining patients to other facilities.
Military activity around the hospital also damaged ceilings, the hospital roof and some equipment. At least 20 doctors and staff members decided to stay in the building, said MERC-Indonesia, and most patients evacuated themselves after fighting intensified in the area starting Thursday.
Doctors and staffers at the hospital were not immediately reachable for comment. A video posted by MERC-Indonesia that was shot from the hospital windows showed an Israeli tank a few meters (several feet) away from the hospital.
Israeli strikes isolate Al-Awda hospital
Nearly a kilometer (about half a mile) away, Israeli drones fired Monday into the Al-Awda hospital courtyard, preventing movement, Shourafi said. On Wednesday, the hospital was shelled while its director was on the phone with The Associated Press. A large boom could be heard on the call.
“They are bombing the hospital,” said Dr. Mohammed Salha, the facility’s director. He later said one security guard was wounded. Patients were not near to the area hit, he said.
A video shared with AP showed damage to the roof and debris in the corridors, with dust still rising from the area.
On Tuesday, Israeli drones fired at two ambulances that transferred three patients to Gaza City as the crews tried to return to the hospital, spokesperson Khaled Alhelo said.
Alhelo himself was unable to return to the hospital Tuesday because of military activity. There are currently no ambulances or Internet lines at Al-Awda hospital, according to Shourafi and Alhelo.
Israeli troops are about 900 meters (about half a mile) away from the hospital, Alhelo said. But the real risk, he said, is from Israeli drones flying over the hospital and preventing any movement in or out.
“Anyone moving in the hospital is fired at. They are all keeping low inside the hospital,” he said.
The Israeli military had no comment when asked on the situation at Al-Awda and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s shelling.
About 47 patients, including nearly 20 children and several pregnant women, and some 140 doctors and medical staff members are still at the hospital, hospital board member Shourafi said.
He said the hospital board decided not to evacuate the hospital and called for supplies and the return of ambulances because there are still bombings and wounded people in the area.
“In light of the war, and conflict, it should remain functioning,” Shourafi said. He said the hospital has been besieged and raided several times since the war began in October 2023, but he called the current phase the “most critical.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.


Lebanon says Israel strikes in south kill two

Updated 21 May 2025
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Lebanon says Israel strikes in south kill two

  • An “Israeli enemy drone” struck a car in the town of Ain Baal in the coastal district of Tyre
  • The Israeli army said its forces struck a Hezbollah operative

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed two people in the south on Wednesday, the latest attacks despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

An “Israeli enemy drone” struck a car in the town of Ain Baal in the coastal district of Tyre, the ministry said.

The Israeli army said its forces struck a Hezbollah operative in the Tyre area, saying he was “responsible for establishing the necessary infrastructure for the production of precise surface-to-surface missiles in the area.”

The health ministry later said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Yater “killed one person and wounded another.”

An official from Yater said the strike killed a man who was using a bulldozer to remove debris from his home which was damaged during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the state-run National News Agency reported.

It was the third consecutive day of Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Israel said it killed two Hezbollah members over the previous two days.

Israel has kept up strikes on its northern neighbor despite a November truce that sought to halt
more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah including two months of full-blown war.

Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull back its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.

Israel was to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five areas that it deems “strategic.”

The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there.

The truce was based on a United Nations Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.

Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw its remaining troops.

US deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said on Tuesday that Lebanon still has “more” to do in disarming Hezbollah following the war.