Western leaders, US President Joe Biden chief among them, keep stressing that the barbaric Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7 does not represent Islam or the “Palestinian” Arabs.
Several local Arabs with whom Israel Today has spoken have similarly distanced themselves and Islam in general from the Hamas atrocities.
See: Mistrust of Arabs is growing!
But Hamas is a fundamentalist Islamist organization. It could be argued that they are the more pious Muslims. And a third of all Israeli Arabs say that is indeed the case, that the actions of Hamas on October 7 were in line with Islamic values and representative of the will of Arab society in the Holy Land.
Thirty-three percent of all Arab Israelis surveyed recently disagreed with the following statement: “The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas does not reflect the values of Islam and Arab society in Israel.” A further 11% “didn’t know.” Among Muslim Arabs only (separating out Druze and Christians) the number was larger still, with 34.5% disagreeing with the statement and 12.5% answering “didn’t know.”
The poll was carried out between Nov. 27 and Dec. 4, 2023, with 538 men and women interviewed by telephone in Arabic. The maximum sampling error was ±4.31% at a confidence level of 95%.
It was conducted by the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions (Arab Society in Israel Program) in collaboration with the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.
The poll results, similar to those of a poll published in early December, indicate that a significant number of Arab Israelis harbor views that put them at odds with the country’s values.
The earlier poll, conducted by Tel Aviv University, found that 32% of Arab Israelis do not believe that Hamas terrorists intentionally targeted women and children on Oct. 7.
The TAU poll also found that 44% of Arab Israelis did not feel that Israel’s response to the Hamas attack was justified, while 38% believed that both Israel and Hamas share responsibility for the outbreak of war.
A total of 502 Israeli Arab citizens over 18 were surveyed. The Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation initiated the study.
According to the data, 21% of Arab Israelis think that Oct. 7 contributed to a solution to the Palestinian problem.