I argue on p. 204 of my 2024 book Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated that
Palestinians might appear unanimously to abhor Israel and seek its destruction but that is not the case. In fact, a significant percentage of them has either given up the fight; accepted Israel's existence; expressed appreciation of it; or chosen to move to it. Such overlooked persons have great importance, implying an unwonted receptivity to Israel and its messages.
This weblog entry logs occasional supporting evidence for that assertion.
Tahani Abu Daqqa, a Gaza-born Palestinian Authority politician spoke on Al-Arabiya television:
In 1948, 1956, and 1967, my family and I were not expelled from our land and our home, and were not turned into refugees. In this war, however, I was driven out of my home, I became a refugee in Egypt. My house is now under occupation, because it is in the buffer zone. My land, on which I had some projects that were destroyed, is also under the control of the occupation.
So I would like to ask: In what way is this a victory? Perhaps it can be said that the Hamas movement has shown its strength, has proven that Israel could not easily reach the hostages to free them, but ultimately, it was us who were slaughtered. We have become displaced, we have died, we have been humiliated, women have been thrown in the streets, bodies have been eaten by dogs. ... All of this should also be taken into consideration. ...
The entire Resistance Axis has collapsed. The Resistance Axis that we used to threaten and intimidate Israel has collapsed. The power of Hizbullah, of Syria, and of Hamas, whose weapons frightened the occupation. ... It is all gone. As far as I can see, we have no Resistance movement left.
(January 25, 2025)
Jan. 28, 2025 update: Mohammed al-Tous, 69, a member of Fatah, was arrested in 1985 for his role commanding an attack on five civilian buses, wounding 16, as well as for having previously masterminded the murder of five Israeli civilians. He spent 40 years in prison serving out a life sentence, then was days ago released as part of the Hamas-Israel deal. He is the oldest security prisoner freed so far and one of the few prisoners detained before the 1993 Oslo Accords not previously released.
He spoke to the Emirati station, Al-Mashhad TV, referring to the Oct. 7 massacre:
Muhammad al-Tous: I told [my son] Shadi, when he was in school ... that the current stage requires us to completely refrain from carrying out military operations. All the focus must be on the political efforts, which were the main focus back then. I am still guiding him and my grandchildren to refrain from engaging in direct resistance activities. ...
Interviewer: You advise them to stay away from direct resistance activities?
Tous: Yes.
Interviewer: Why?
Tous: "Because circumstances change, and the way things are right now, direct military operations are not needed. ...
Interviewer: But some people might say that it was a direct military operation that got you out of prison, after 40 years.
Al-Tous: But the price is very hard [to accept]. We have always said that we did not want the price of our release to be one drop of the blood of a Palestinian child, because we did what we did for the sake of these people and for these children, and by no means would we accept that they would be the price of our freedom. We were acting so that our people and our children could live free in the future, and not so that they would die in order get us out of prison.
We are willing to spend our whole lives in prison to prevent even one Palestinian child or woman from being wounded. So what can we say about over 60,000 martyrs who have been killed? And for what? To secure the release of 3,000-3,500 prisoners? Before the operations, we were a total of 4,700 prisoners, with 2,200 of them on administrative detention, which means that they could be released in 6, 12, or 18 month at the most.
