'Abbas has failed': Fatah opponent Samer Sinijlawi details path to peace

A Pew Research Center poll conducted between March and April shows that 76% of Jewish Israelis think that Israel will definitely or probably succeed in achieving its war aims against Hamas; 12% think it will definitely or probably fail. Four percent think Israel’s military response to Hamas in Gaza has gone too far. Ninety percent of those surveyed perceive the role of the US in the war positively, and 40% think Israel should govern the Gaza Strip after the war.

The same poll was conducted among Arab Israelis, with different results. Only 38% of Arab Israelis think Israel will succeed in defeating Hamas; 42% believe it will definitely or probably fail. Seventy-four percent think the war in Gaza has gone too far. Regarding the US role in the war, only 29% perceive it to be positive and a mere 3% want Israel to govern the Gaza Strip after the war.

Meanwhile, one week ago, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) reported through a poll that Palestinian support for armed struggle grew from 8% to 54% in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The support for Hamas rose by six percentage points to 40%. Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, had 20% backing. The analysis also showed that two-thirds of the interviewees thought the decision of Hamas to attack on October 7 was correct.

A complex array of feelings

“I don’t believe in polls during the war. If you test the feelings of both Israelis and Palestinians in this time, you will just find anger, hatred, and grief,” Samer Sinijlawi, a Palestinian political activist and Fatah opponent to President Mahmoud Abbas. “This is understandable because Israelis were shocked on the 7th of October, and also the Palestinians suffer every day by seeing images of what is happening in Gaza. Polls are not a proper toll during a war to examine real phenomena,” Sinijlawi added.

Speaking Wednesday at the Future of Israel Conference at Tel Aviv University on a panel with Ksenia Svetlova, CEO of the organization ROPES and a researcher at the Atlantic Council, Sinijlawi spoke of the importance of understanding each other’s collective trauma and building mutual trust after all the atrocities that both sides have committed.

“The majority of Israelis and Palestinians will be glad to find a way out of this conflict, but the issue is that they don’t trust each other. The main task for any political leadership should be to build this trust again because they have reached a stage where they don’t know each other anymore. As Palestinians, we have to take the first step to initiate something,” he stated.

Sinijlawi sees answers to the current war as coming through insiders: “The solution to this conflict won’t be solved through Washington but through Tel Aviv. We have to be present here as Palestinians, especially in events like these, to understand Israeli concerns and what is their perception of the current conflict.”

The media coverage of the war on both sides has altered the vision of the “other” to an extreme and has led to dehumanization as well, he asserts.

“The bad media coverage has impacted negatively on both sides since only negative things were said both in Israeli and Arab media against the other side. We have to fight this fundamental ignorance that prevents us from seeing real facts,” Sinijlawi explained.

The future of the Palestinian Authority (PA) the day after the war plays an important role in Sinijlawi’s discourse. As an opposition member of Fatah, he told The Media Line that Mahmoud Abbas and the PA have been lacking vision and haven’t improved the status of Palestinians at all on any level.

“Many Palestinian rights activists have been killed for criticizing Abbas. Moreover, this president doesn’t want to guarantee elections and has been ruling there without public consensus. Every Palestinian feels like a hostage in the hands of Abbas. The Palestinians are fed up with this corruption,” Sinijlawi said.

The PSR’s poll showed this dissatisfaction, with 60% of those surveyed supporting the PA’s dissolution and 89% wanting Abbas to resign.

Several guest speakers who represented the Israeli center, left, and right-wing opposition to the current government attended the university event, including Knesset member and National Unity leader Benny Gantz, Ra’am party head Mansour Abbas, and the newly elected head of the Labor party, Yair Golan.

Gantz emphasized the importance of bringing back the hostages and building a “stronger version of Israel” that can face the threats of external powers like Iran and its proxies.

He recently resigned from the emergency War Cabinet and is a vocal opponent of the current government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We must not mirror the image of extreme behaviors we see in some members of the coalition. Our positions are different. And our path is also different. We will not make generalizations, and we will not spread hatred, period. … After the October disaster, we must hold elections, and it is better if we do so with a broad consensus,” he stated.

Giorgia Valente is a recent graduate of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and an intern in The Media Line’s Press and Policy Student Program.