The View From Gaza

Amaney Jamal, the Palestinian-American dean of Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, on polling inside a war zone, whether both sides still support two states, and how Palestinians are processing a generational calamity.

Amaney Jamal and her researchers found a grim picture in their polling work: a hungry and desperately poor population that didn’t much trust their political leadership in Hamas, nor did they see much of a future for themselves and their children. Photo: Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images

Julia Ioffe

February 14, 2024

On October 6, 2023, political scientist Amaney Jamal and her researchers at the Arab Barometer wrapped up their polling work in Gaza. They found a grim picture: a hungry and desperately poor population that didn’t much trust their political leadership in Hamas, nor did they see much of a future for themselves and their children. In the West Bank, the land that would theoretically constitute a Palestinian state kept getting occupied and balkanized by Israeli settlements, to the point where Amaney found a two-state solution became a harder and harder policy position to advocate.