Public Opinion in Palestine Before the Conflict

On the eve of Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, Arab Barometer completed its 8th wave survey in Palestine. The findings offer unique insight into the views of ordinary Palestinians living in both the West Bank and Gaza.

In this event, guest speakers Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins will provide an overview of the views of government, living conditions, views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and international actors. This includes low levels of support for most existing political actors and increasingly difficult economic situations for Palestinians. Jamal and Robbins find that Palestinians want a peaceful solution and are wary of normalization that does not provide a solution to this broader problem. They find limited support for most international actors, but do find indications of which countries may be better placed to help bring an end to the conflict and work to rebuild Gaza once the conflict comes to an end.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Amaney A. Jamal is Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Jamal also directs the Workshop on Arab Political Development and the Bobst-AUB Collaborative Initiative. She is the former President of the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS). The focus of her current research is on the drivers of political behavior in the Arab world, Muslim immigration to the US and Europe, and the effect of inequality and poverty on political outcomes. Jamal’s books include Barriers to Democracy (2007), which explores the role of civic associations in promoting democratic effects in the Arab world (winner of the 2008 APSA Best Book Award in comparative democratization). She is co-editor of Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9/11: From Invisible Citizens to Visible Subjects (2007) and Citizenship and Crisis: Arab Detroit after 9/11 (2009). Her most recent book, Of Empires and Citizens, was published by Princeton University Press (2012). Jamal is co-principal investigator of the Arab Barometer Project, winner of the Best Dataset in the Field of Comparative Politics (Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Dataset Award 2010); co-PI of the Detroit Arab American Study, a sister survey to the Detroit Area Study; and senior advisor on the Pew Research Center projects focusing on Islam in America (2006) Global Islam (2010) and Islam in America (2017). Ph.D. University of Michigan. In 2005, Jamal was named a Carnegie Scholar.
 

Michael Robbins is the director and co-principal investigator of Arab Barometer. He has been a part of the research network since its inception and serving as director since 2014. He has led or overseen more than 100 surveys in international contexts and is a leading expert in survey methods on ensuring data quality. His work on Arab public opinion, political Islam, and political parties has been published in Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Democracy and Foreign Affairs. He received the American Political Science Association Aaron Wildavsky Award for the Best Dissertation in the field of Religion and Politics.