Key takeaways:
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Polls show deep, persistent radicalization in Palestinian society, with majority support for Hamas, denial of its atrocities, rejection of disarmament, and declining support for a two-state solution — highlighting that extremism, not Israeli policy, is the core barrier to peace.
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Hostage testimonies expose civilian complicity with terror groups, including Gazans participating in mob violence, holding hostages in private homes, and even journalists doubling as Hamas operatives — underscoring how deeply terrorism is embedded in Gaza’s social fabric.
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Deradicalization, not diplomacy alone, is essential for any real peace, as generations have been raised on education systems and media steeped in antisemitism and violent indoctrination, making ideological reform a prerequisite for lasting coexistence.
Little over one month ago, the last living Israeli hostages were released from Gaza as an immediate ceasefire came into place under U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-Point Peace Plan. The first point of the peace plan hopes to deradicalize Gaza as a “terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.” By point twenty, there will be “dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.”
It all sounds easy enough in theory, but in practice, getting from point one to point twenty will take more than diplomatic vision alone. It will also require a systematic effort to fundamentally shift the ideological landscape that enabled extremism and terrorism to embed itself so deeply in Palestinian society.
The data behind these attitudes has been sounding the alarm for the past several years. Following the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) found that only 27% of Palestinians believed the preferred way out of the status quo of the recurring cycle of conflict with Israel was by “reaching a peace agreement with Israel.” In comparison, 39% preferred waging “an armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.”
A poll in the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks found 72% of the total Palestinian public believed that Hamas’ decision to launch the attacks was correct, and 75% of West Bank Palestinians and 38% of Gazans preferred Hamas to remain in control of the Gaza Strip after the war.
Today, this worrying trend of justifying terrorism continues. The newest PSR poll found that still more than 50% of Palestinians support Hamas’ actions on October 7; 86% did not believe Hamas committed any atrocities against Israeli civilians; 69% did not support the disarmament of Hamas; and 53% opposed a two-state solution.
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The numbers do not lie. They reveal a society where extremist narratives have become normalized, and where support for violence remains deeply entrenched, even after repeated outbreaks of conflict and war. The issue does not lie in the peace plans brought to the table, but rather the very idea of who that said peace would be with.
Through these public opinion polls, one thing remains painfully clear: Israel is not the obstacle. The deeper attitude lies within the entrenched attitudes and radicalization of a society.
Released hostages have also frequently noted the extremism they faced. Rom Braslavski, for instance, recalled that shortly after he was taken hostage in Gaza, he was being held in a private home. When his captor from Islamic Jihad was not around, Rom would break free of his restraints and make himself food. Without any gas, he made a makeshift fire, which eventually caught the attention of Gazan civilians on the street who came to realize there was an unattended Israeli hostage in their midst. Not a single civilian came to free and save him. Rather, a mob entered the home where Rom was staying and beat him nearly to death, but before they were able to kill him, his captor returned.
Other hostages have been held in the homes of civilians. Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, rescued during Operation Arnon in June 2024, were all held in the family home of Abdallah Aljamal. Aljamal was both a Hamas terrorist and a journalist for Al Jazeera, displaying the cross-section of terrorism into civilian jobs. Shlomi Ziv was similarly held by a Gazan journalist.
Shlomi Ziv was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7th and held captive in Gaza for 246 days.
His captor? A Gazan journalist.? pic.twitter.com/iWBLyiUcX6— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) August 23, 2025
There is a deeply rooted problem that begins in the education system of Palestinian society. The adult population today was raised on an education system and television programs embedded with Jew-hatred, the desire to cleanse the land of Jews, and destroy the State of Israel. This is not a fringe phenomenon but rather a generational one. It has shaped the public opinion of Gaza today – reflected so starkly in the polls, which display majority support for the October 7 massacre, rejection of Hamas disarmament, and widespread denial of Hamas’ atrocities.
If Gaza’s society is to move away from entrenched extremism, education and culture must be the starting points.
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People will only believe what they can see. The evidence of the refusal to deradicalize the population in Gaza is unmistakable, yet the willingness of much of the world to acknowledge that evidence remains absent.
As Jonathan Freedland and Hillary Clinton astutely recognized, it is not enough to put facts into the world. People must accept them, internalize them, and allow them to reshape their assumptions. Until there is a clear and honest acknowledgment of the ideological trajectory of Palestinian society in Gaza, any genuine roadmap for deradicalization – and therefore for peace – will remain a distant prospect.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
