The West Bank Between the Desire for Change and the Deadlock: A Political Reading of the Pew and Israeli National Security Institute Surveys

Author: Lieutenant General: Ahmed Issa

Opinion measurement tools in societies help to understand what people think within the community, and to gauge their support or rejection of a specific issue, policy, or leadership. They also measure trust, priorities, expectations, and willingness to participate. The appropriate measurement tool varies depending on what is intended to be known, such as: how many people adopt a certain position? And why do they adopt this position?

There are various measurement tools including: opinion polls, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, repeated surveys, social media analysis, media content analysis, studying jokes and popular sayings prevalent in a specific time period, among other tools.

The results of measuring public opinion trends benefit governing bodies in countries, especially Israel, as a colonial occupying state, in preparing and developing strategies to deal with the outcomes of public opinion trends within the Palestinian community and its developments at early times.

Publishing the results of opinion polls helps to convey the positions of a sample of people to the public domain, meaning not only describing public opinion but also contributing to influencing it, which seems to be the aim of the Pew and INSS surveys.

It is important to clarify here that reading the experiences of colonial powers in maintaining their control over colonized peoples, especially British colonialism, shows that they preferred the scenario of buying the trend to ensure control over it and redirect its final outcome to serve their interests, after understanding the trajectory of public opinion in society. They did not prefer to confront it from the beginning, or to let it develop and then confront it at a certain stage.

The operation of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, reveals that the Israeli occupation state, which inherited Britain's experience in Palestine, has failed miserably to employ the three scenarios in confronting the general trend that had been growing and developing in Gaza for years prior to the flood; it failed to buy it even with money, as it failed to confront it during its stages of development through the repeated wars it waged on Gaza. Most importantly, it continues to fail in containing its repercussions and effects, according to reports issued by Israeli strategic think tanks.

The timing of the publication of the opinion poll results from both the Israeli National Security Institute (INSS) and the American Pew Institute comes at a moment after the Israeli failure to employ scenarios for dealing with public opinion trends in Gaza and the West Bank, which indicates that it is an attempt to divert public opinion trends, so that genocide and erasure become the foundations of public opinion and its developmental paths instead of the flood and its meanings, implications, and developmental paths. This places the Palestinian community in front of a question: Has the flood strengthened their belief in their national project? Or has genocide and erasure pushed them to think of alternatives? And do the results of the two polls allow for the conclusion that there is a segment of the Palestinian community in the West Bank where the trend of weakening faith in the national project is growing?

In reality, reading the results of the American Pew Center and the Israeli National Security Studies Institute does not allow for declaring the end of the Palestinian national project, or considering that Palestinians are ready to give up their rights in exchange for improving their living conditions. However, it raises a more pressing question: What happens when society seeks a less costly way to achieve its goals, while its confidence in the possibility of reaching them and in the ability of its leaders to represent it declines?

The results of Pew were published on September 15, 2026, and included 1,038 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with interviews conducted between March 30 and April 28. The Israeli institute's survey, published on September 17, included 400 adults in the West Bank via phone, between June 27 and July 2. Therefore, the proximity of publication does not imply simultaneous measurement, and the differences in questions and samples prevent treating the results as a single measurement; however, it is certain that they complement each other.

The most significant implication lies in the combination of two seemingly contradictory results: the institute's survey showed that 52% prefer negotiation as a means to end the conflict, compared to 12% who choose armed resistance; while Pew found that only 21% see the possibility of peaceful coexistence between Israel and an independent Palestinian state, while 68% do not see that as possible.

However, the contradiction here seems superficial; preferring a political means does not mean believing that the conditions for its success are available. A Palestinian can prefer negotiation while simultaneously believing that settlement, lack of trust, and Israeli policies prevent the establishment of an independent state. Here, it is important to distinguish between what a person wants and what they believe is possible. It is also not possible to conclude that the same individuals held both positions, as we are dealing with different samples.

The picture becomes more complex when we find that the two-state solution received 27% in the institute's survey among the proposed settlement alternatives, and no alternative received a majority. This means that the preference for negotiation does not constitute a ready mandate for a specific settlement formula; there may be a desire to change the means without agreement on the shape of the political end.

Daily life provides a key to understanding these positions. In the Pew survey, 92% considered Israeli checkpoints a major problem for them and their families, 85% considered job opportunities a major problem, while 90% described the economic situation as bad. These indicators place freedom of movement and work at the heart of the Palestinian political experience.

It is not correct to turn the focus on bread and personal security into evidence of abandoning independence. The freedom to access work, school, and hospital is part of the very meaning of freedom itself. The political conclusion here is that any national project loses its credibility if it fails to connect its grand objectives with protecting people and improving their ability to survive, while the improvement of living conditions remains fragile if it remains subject to the decisions of a power that controls movement and resources.

Regarding leadership, the published electoral results from the institute's survey indicate that 44% do not intend to vote, while 30% chose Fatah and 4% chose Hamas from the total respondents. It is important to distinguish between these percentages and the expected shares of votes among those who actually participate.

Politically, the high abstention from participation raises questions about representation, but it does not alone reveal the reasons for abstention; it may reflect a protest against leadership, a lack of trust in elections, or the absence of alternatives. Therefore, the weakness of Hamas is not enough to grant the authority renewed legitimacy, nor is the decline in trust in the authority sufficient to prove the existence of a ready alternative. Legitimacy requires participation, accountability, and the ability to achieve results, not just superiority over a weak opponent.

Gaza remains the clearest point for conclusion. Pew states that it was impossible to conduct the survey there for security reasons, while the institute limits the scope of its study to the West Bank. Accordingly, the two surveys do not represent the entire Palestinian public opinion, nor do they measure the approval of Gaza residents for a future being drawn for them.

The absence of Gaza does not prove the existence of a joint plan to separate it, nor does the proximity of the publication date indicate coordination between the two institutions, and at the same time, the existence of coordination cannot be denied, although proving that requires independent evidence. However, the political danger exists if results pertaining to the West Bank are used to formulate general Palestinian arrangements, or if Gaza is treated as a relief and management file, while the West Bank is treated as a governance and security file. In that case, the flaw lies in the use of knowledge, not necessarily in its collection.

From this perspective, surveys do not predict a predetermined future for the West Bank, but rather help envision conditional pathways. The desire for change may lead to a renewal of representation and the establishment of a credible political path; it may be reduced to a livelihood management without sovereignty; or frustration may turn into deeper apathy or protest if alternatives remain closed. The results do not provide a basis for a decisive preference for any of these pathways.

The most important Palestinian message is that reviewing means should be coupled with renewing institutions and unifying representation between Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. The message to the Israeli decision-maker is that a preference for negotiation does not equate to acceptance of permanent control. The international message is that the call for peace requires a tangible political opportunity.

Surveys reveal a gap between the search for a possible path and the lack of trust in achieving freedom, due to objective reasons related to settler terrorism and the army's protection of them, and subjective reasons related to the erosion of trust in leadership. The task of Palestinian politics here is to transform this gap into a program, representation, and the ability to act, before this gap develops into an explosion that sweeps everything in its path.