world news
Two-state solution support rises in West Bank, Gaza, Arab-American communities – poll
Support for a two-state solution in the Middle East among Arab Americans and Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza is on the rise, according to two recent surveys.
The more recent survey from YouGov and Arab News was published on Tuesday. The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) published the other in September.
A survey of Arab Americans leading up to the US presidential elections found that half of those polled (50%) believed in seeking a two-state solution.
The poll touched upon the future of the conflict and possible resolutions to see its conclusion. Half of Arab-Americans polled believed in seeking a two-state solution with shared governance over Jerusalem. 34% believe that there should be one state where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights, and 9% stated that they were unsure.A separate poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in September found that support for the concept of the two-state solution among Palestinians continues to rise and has the support of 39% of those polled.
According to PSR, three months prior, support for two states stood at around 32%. Figures were taken from Gaza and the West Bank, at 39% and 38%, respectively.
However, when asked about a separate Palestinian state not linked to the “two-state solution” and when state borders are identified as those of 1967, support rises to 59%, PSR found.
Half of the respondents prefer the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, while 19% prefer a confederation between the two states of Palestine and Israel. Only 10% prefer establishing a single state with equality between Israelis and Palestinians.
When asked about solving the conflict and reaching statehood, nearly half of Palestinian respondents (48%) said they would choose “armed struggle” as a way to achieve it (50% in the West Bank, 36% in Gaza).
However, a third said they preferred negotiations to end the conflict, and 15% said they would like to see popular peaceful resistance.
International calls for two-states
Recent US administrations and other global actors have called for the end to the ongoing war and to reach a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Biden administration has attempted to broker a hostage and ceasefire deal as a first step. In remarks made ahead of the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in September, US President Joe Biden reiterated his support for a two-state solution.
“As we look ahead, we must also address the rise of violence against innocent Palestinians on the West Bank and set the conditions for a better future, including a two-state solution, where the world — where Israel enjoys security and peace and full recognition and normalized relations with all its neighbors, where Palestinians live in security, dignity, and self-determination in a state of their own,” Biden said.
The survey conducted by Arab News and YouGov was conducted using a sample of 500 Arab Americans across the United States from September 26 to October 1, 2024. The survey data have a margin of error of +/- 5.93%.
The poll conducted by PSR comprised a sample size of 1,200 people, of whom 790 were interviewed face-to-face in the West Bank and 410 in Gaza. The margin of error stood at +/-3.5%.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday put him at odds with the IDF regarding how many haredi the military can absorb in a short amount of time.
Netanyahu said that while he was in favor of increasing haredi integration into the IDF, in practicality, the military needed more time to establish haredi-tailored programs and environments for this to be successful.
The prime minister’s remark comes days after top IDF officials presented a series of highly specific, customized programs for the ultra-Orthodox that are either already open or are “ready to go” as soon as the haredi respond to their military summons. This directly contradicts the prime minister’s words during the briefing.
Netanyahu spoke to the committee in a closed and classified hearing, but portions of what he said were, nevertheless, publicized, including his comments regarding haredi integration into the IDF.
When asked about the issue, Netanyahu said, “We would prefer that anyone who is not studying [in a yeshiva] share the burden [of military service.] But right now, there is a gap between what the army says it can absorb and what it can absorb, so the absorption capacity of the IDF needs to be increased.”
He added that there were intentions to create new frameworks that would allow the haredi to maintain their way of life as well as to respond to operational needs, such as establishing an ultra-Orthodox base along the border with Jordan that would be responsible for defense there.
How to fulfill the IDF’s need for more soldiers
Besides that example, Netanyahu said that the army’s need for more soldiers could be filled by extending the service of mandatory service soldiers as well as calling up a variety of reservists from among the population living in border communities who never responded to their call-ups or were given exemptions.
In contrast to Netanyahu’s statements, seeming to indicate that the IDF cannot absorb a significant increase of haredi men, the military has said repeatedly, dating back to August, that it has been ready to receive an additional 3,000 haredi per year, on top of the approximately 1,800 per year it has already been absorbing.
The announcement in August and the sending of summons to 3,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox community came after months of extensive work and the investment of significant resources to prepare both personnel and bases for a new, major influx.
One new option for service that the IDF has already added for the haredi to make their service more attractive is serving in technical and logistical capacities at hardened aircraft shelters at an air force base section where only men will serve.
Another new option is called the Yoav Track in logistics command centers, which includes fulfilling a wide variety of technical and logistic roles throughout the military, and not just in the Israel Air Force.
Also, though Netanyahu said that the IDF should look into forming a new haredi brigade, the military had already announced last week that on December 26, it would open one, distinct from Netzach Yehuda.
Netzach Yehuda had been the brigade that most of the haredi wanted to join to date. However, it has turned off many of the ultra-orthodox because it has a reputation for being more religious Zionist in nature than haredi.
Additionally, there is a recently established unit of haredi serving at the Ofer detention center, and that program is expected to grow.
Further, a Lt.-Col. with a hassidic Chabad background, who has joined the army. He will be focused on haredi affairs and making sure new inductees are comfortable and are having their needs addressed.
Despite a detailed presentation last week about all of these new service mediums as being already established for haredim, a spokesperson for Netanyahu doubled down on the claim that the IDF was still lacking in its capacity to absorb a major influx of haredi soldiers.
Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.
British rocker Paul Weller, Scottish band Primal Scream, and Irish rappers Kneecap will headline a ‘Gig For Gaza’ charity show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on Dec. 13.
Weller, the former frontman for 1970s punk pioneers The Jam, is curating the show, with all proceeds going to organizations Medical Aid For Palestinians and Gaza Forever, which purportedly provide essential aid – including food, medical supplies, and emergency shelter – for Gazans who have been forced to flee their homes due to the Israel-Hamas War.
“This is an opportunity to enjoy a night of powerful music and make a tangible difference in the lives of people facing unimaginable hardship,” a press release for the show said. The concert will also feature guest speakers and short films.
Weller of Primal Scream performed with Palestinian flag
During a recent tour of the US, Weller, a longtime advocate for leftwing causes, performed with a Palestinian flag draped over his guitar amplifier. Speaking onstage from Glasgow, Scotland, last month, Weller said, “I would like to dedicate that last song to all the tens of thousands of women, children, babies, men, civilians in Palestine and Gaza. I would ask you one question. It’s really simple. There is no grey area. Are you for genocide, or are you against it? It’s a f–-king yes or no question…”
Over the summer, Primal Scream, which formed in the 1980s, gave their support for a jersey design for a Palestinian refugee football team based on their classic record ‘Screamadelica.’
In March, Kneecap withdrew from performing at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, after it was revealed that the US Army was a “super sponsor” of the event as well as defense contractor RTX Corporation.
“It is done in solidarity with the people of Palestine and to highlight the unacceptable deep links the festival has to weapons companies,” the group explained of their decision via Instagram. “This will have a significant financial impact on Kneecap… but it isn’t an iota of hardship when compared with the suffering being inflicted on the people of Gaza.
None of the artists appearing nor promo material for the concert mentioned the 101 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, nor the October 7 massacre that killed over 1,200 Israelis and sparked the current war aimed at toppling Hamas.
David Brinn contributed to this report.
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, will be remembered as the fighter whose war ultimately cost him his life. It would be premature to suggest that Sinwar’s death means the war in Gaza is over. Both Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had hidden agendas throughout the conflict.
Sinwar had a false vision from the outset. He thought the war he triggered on October 7 would bring about the end of Israel, defeat its army, and open the road to a liberated Jerusalem. He bit off more than he could chew and paid with his life and the lives of 42,000 Palestinians—a price he couldn’t have imagined or expected.
Netanyahu was similarly vague about his intentions. He couldn’t tell the military commanders exactly what he wanted to achieve through the war on Gaza. Commanders repeatedly tried to clarify the war’s objectives so their soldiers would know what they were supposed to achieve. Netanyahu never responded, raising questions about what sort of leader he was, taking his country into a war that the army became deeply engaged in without knowing where to go and what to achieve other than Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, as the 1968 Western action movie was titled.
Both men had reasons for extending the war because they felt their political careers and survival would end the day it ended. Sinwar thought the Israeli captives would become his wild card in pressuring Israel into meeting his demands. He erred. He never expected Netanyahu to turn his back on the captives, placing his political survival and that of his government ahead of the captives’ lives and fate.Sinwar thought the rising death toll among Palestinian civilians would force the international community to intervene, pressure Israel, and stop the war on his terms. He erred in this too. The miscalculated war brought more havoc on the Palestinians than on the Israelis. Assuming that the ratio of deaths among Palestinians and Israelis in almost every showdown was about 10 Palestinians for each Israeli, Sinwar thought that when the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s airstrikes crossed the threshold of 12,000 civilians, the world would jump to its feet and demand an immediate ceasefire. That didn’t happen. The ratio went up to 40:1, and the numbers kept increasing.
At the same time, the war seems to be in its beginning as the Israeli army runs in circles, displacing Palestinians from one place to another, changing tactics and goals, and returning to the northern Gaza Strip to mop it up, disregarding earlier announcements that the area had been cleansed of Hamas fighters in the first weeks of the Israeli ground assault.
In his recent interview with the Haredi weekly Mishpacha, Netanyahu argued he was right in standing by his intention to continue the war. He defended his stubborn stand in the face of army generals, public opinion, and international pressure in stalling any deal with Hamas because, as he said, history will remember him as Israel’s savior.
Therefore, for him, the ends always justify the means. That was the lesson he learned from his late father, who advised him to hand over parts of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority after the Wye River Memorandum if that would allow him to safeguard the rest of the “land of Israel.” In this war, Netanyahu behaved like a drunken driver who knew nothing about traffic lights and the meaning of a red light. To his credit, he made it, but at what price, other than gaining more egoism and costing both Israelis and Palestinians dearly?
When both leaders, Netanyahu and Sinwar, become hostages to their zero-sum addiction, the end is clear. Sinwar paid with his life. Netanyahu will eventually pay with his political career. No state commission of inquiry would ever disregard Netanyahu’s behavior before, during, and after October 7. The Israeli public will wake up from its intoxication from the tactical successes in the field to the ugly reality of how bad the war was for Israel and the region. The same applies to the Palestinians, even in Gaza.
Even though Sinwar was seen as personally responsible for the agony and plight of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, words of mourning spread all over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In Arab culture, people believe in honoring the dead no matter how profound their differences with the deceased are. The images and videos that filled social networks of Sinwar’s last moments of life gave the man a prestige he may not have dreamed of among his people. An Israeli soldier who sent his drone into a building to check its interior spotted three armed Palestinians and suspected that Sinwar was one of them. The orders were given to the tank to hit that building. The drone returned to film and showed Sinwar, wounded and seated on an armchair, waving a wooden bar and throwing it at the drone. These images gave Sinwar a prestige none of the movement’s political leaders abroad ever had.
Who takes the steering wheel for Hamas?
What matters is not what the Palestinian public feels today about Sinwar’s death as much as the question of who will take over the steering wheel after him. Before discussing the potential successors, it is worth reminding everyone that any leader who fills Sinwar’s shoes will have the onus of proving to his constituency that he is no less harsh against the Israelis than Sinwar. Therefore, in the absence of an Israeli readiness to cut a deal that brings the Israeli captives back home, ends the war, and releases the agreed-upon list of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, no Hamas leader can move forward. Incentives are needed for whoever is going to run Hamas from now on.
If the lives of the Israeli captives mean something to the government of Israel, then everything should be done, and done now, to close the captives’ dossier and move on to a different reality not only in the Gaza Strip but in the region. The region needs a reality based on a political agreement between two states for two peoples to live side by side along the 1967 lines. No matter how long this war goes on, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or even beyond, a political settlement will always remain the way out. Why not take a shortcut and spare the Palestinians and the Israelis the pain of an ongoing and meaningless war? Honestly, I don’t see this happening soon. The wounds of the current war will take time to heal, if ever.
One dark prophecy about what may happen to the Israeli captives who are still alive is a decision by the local commanders of Hamas in Gaza to kill all the hostages if they are convinced that they don’t count in Israel’s long-term strategy. They might do it to avenge the killing of their commander or even to preemptively avenge their potential assassination by Israel since they see it coming today, tomorrow, or next year. Sinwar, too, understood that this would be the case with him, even if an interim deal were reached for him to leave Gaza and live elsewhere. He was sure that Israel’s long arm would hunt him down no matter where he hid.
The question is, who will take over from Sinwar? His brother Mohammed Sinwar seems to have the highest chance to fill his shoes. Mohammed was the one who kidnapped Gilad Shalit and kept for himself the veto power within Hamas not to sign any exchange deal with Israel if his brother, Yahya, was not on the list of the Palestinian prisoners destined to be released. One day, Mohammed explained that his mother told him she wouldn’t rest until she hugged her son, Yahya, at home. He took an oath to release him. He did it. Mohammed is a stubborn and ruthless commander and his brother’s closest aide and ally. The commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade, Mohammed is not that easy to deal with. Only a generous incentive can bring him on board. In the meantime, he is the one who will take over responsibility for the Israeli captives. Hamas has no intention to declare who the new boss is out of fear that he, too, would be assassinated by Israel.
Nevertheless, the name of Khalil al-Hayya popped up as the successor. He was the closest to Sinwar and his deputy. He belongs to the Iranian camp and is vehemently opposed to most political bureau members who are more affiliated with Turkey and Qatar. It is the fight between the Shia and Sunni camps of Islamism.
Izz al-Din Haddad, the commander of the Gaza Brigade and the one in charge of the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip, is also one of the potential successors. Even if Mohammed takes over, Haddad remains a candidate to take over once Mohammed is assassinated. They all know Israel would hunt them down just as it did with the senior command of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Muhammad Shabana, the commander of Hamas’ Rafah Brigade, is also one of the prominent commanders in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He was added to the list of potential commanders to control Gaza during the war. None of these commanders knows or can be confident that he will still be around when the war in Gaza ends.
Regarding Hamas’ leadership abroad, Khaled Mashaal is currently the de facto leader. Living in Doha, Mashaal believes he can take Hamas away from the war in Gaza, transforming it into a political party with a reserved seat in Middle East politics. He did it before when he took over after the assassination in 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas. In two years, Mashal took Hamas to the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, which it had boycotted in 1996. The Arab media quoted him as saying that the time has come for Hamas to become political and join the Palestine Liberation Organization, insinuating his acceptance of the two-state solution.
Mashal is submitting his credentials as Hamas’ moderate leader with whom the West can do business. Whether the West would believe his words and subsequently embrace him is too early to judge. Most of the keys to a solution are in the hands of Israelis, the overriding military power that controls the flow of events in the region. Only if Israel is convinced that the war must end can it end. Otherwise, the sky is the limit.
Elias Zananiri is a veteran journalist from east Jerusalem who has held several senior positions in the PLO as a political adviser and media consultant over the past two decades.
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