• Saudi support for allowing economic ties with Israel has shrunk to just 17%
• 94% of Saudis believe Hamas should not stop calling for the destruction of Israel
A Washington Institute poll of 1,000 Saudi citizens has shown that Saudi opinion about Hamas has changed dramatically. The Washington Institute is a pro-Israeli American think tank based in Washington, DC. Its main aim is to provide an independent analysis of the Middle East and is driven by advancing American interests. This specific poll was to see how Saudi attitudes have shifted due to the genocide taking place in Gaza and was taken between November 14 and December 6th. It highlights the drastic change in public Saudi opinion towards Hamas and the attitudes that now exist about Israel. It must be remembered that only in September, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, said that Saudi Arabia is moving ‘closer’ each day to a normalisation deal with Israel. It must also be noted that the Washington Institute has also conducted polls in the previous months and years before October 7th, when the genocide began, and therefore this lets us compare how the Gaza genocide has directly affected the opinions of typical Saudi citizens.
Even amidst the deaths of more than 22,000 people in Gaza, more than half a million are suffering catastrophic levels of starvation. 91% of Saudis believe that “despite the destruction and loss of life, this war in Gaza is a win for the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.” On top of this, only 16% of Saudis say that “Hamas should stop calling for the destruction of Israel and instead accept a permanent two-state solution to the conflict based on the 1967 borders.” This means that the status quo amongst Saudis is that the vast majority agree with Hamas’s overall objective, which is the destruction of Israel, which may be because of the concurrent heinous war crimes and massacres the Israelis are committing in Gaza. What’s interesting about this specific study is that the majority disagrees with the very idea of Hamas accepting a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. This is something most of the world is calling for, including the Saudi Crown Prince and most of the Arab countries in the Middle East. Yet the Saudi opinion is that Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, should not accept such an agreement. This undoubtedly shows that the Saudi people have understood that the two-state solution is not a realistic or feasible prospect, which could also mean that they likely believe it will never happen. The fact that the Saudi people feel that Hamas has a right to want to destroy Israel means that their sympathy with the Palestinian people and understanding of the overall vision of Hamas have become better.
To top this off, the poll also shows that 95% of Saudis don’t believe Hamas killed innocent civilians on October 7th. This means that the narrative the Israelis have played out to justify their ongoing genocide has not been able to achieve its objectives in Saudi Arabia; rather, it may only have helped exacerbate the current opinion.
So what is the overall opinion on Hamas?
The Washington Institute had done an earlier poll earlier in August, 3 months before the start of this genocide, and only 10% of Saudis had a positive view of Hamas in that poll. As of the recent poll taken from November 14th to December 6th, the percentage of people viewing Hamas in a positive light had quadrupled. According to the poll, 40% of Saudis had either a somewhat positive or very positive view of Hamas. This is a stark increase from August, and the last time a recorded poll has seen such high numbers of people taking a positive stance was in 2015, the same year King Salman of Saudi Arabia was crowned.
The Washington Institute Poll demonstrating Saudi Arabia’s public opinion on Hamas
How has the Saudi view on normalisation changed?
In September 2020, three weeks after the UAE agreed to normalise ties with Israel, the main imam of the biggest and most sacred mosque in the world spoke in a sermon about how the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was good to his Jewish neighbour, and he argued the best way to persuade Jews to convert to Islam was to “treat them well.” This, along with the modification of the school curriculum, were just some of the many signs that hinted that Saudi Arabia was on its way to normalising ties with Israel. It only became a true credible possibility in September this year when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu himself said that Israel was ‘likely’ to reach a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia. Yet what was the average Saudi citizen thinking? It’s true that although Saudi Arabia is a monarch whose authority runs far and wide, even Mohammed Bin Salman feared in 2020 that his people would rise up against him if he chose to normalise ties with Israel. The preparation to normalise ties therefore had to be a long and enduring process, with the unexpected possibility of war swinging the opinion on Israel back to where it started. The Washington Institute conducted a poll in 2020 asking Saudis whether people who want to have business or sporting contacts with Israelis should be allowed to do so. At the time, 86% disagreed. However, as the years went by and the push for preparation to normalise relations was on its way forward, support for allowing businesses and sport contacts started to increase, with 43% of people in last year’s poll in November 2022 agreeing that Saudis that do businesses have sport contacts with Israelis should be allowed to do so. However, after the recent ongoing genocide, there seemed to be a significant reverse, with 80% of Saudis disagreeing with permitting businesses and sporting contacts with Israelis and 17% agreeing. This is a dramatic change from 40% agreeing to 17% and shows that Hamas’s October 7th offensive may have played in the resistance’s favour.
The Washington Institute Poll giving an insight into the Saudi view to normalisation
What does this mean for the Palestinian resistance, and how could this affect Saudi Arabia’s decisions?
In November, Saudi Arabia’s minister of investment, Khalid Al-Falih, said talks of normalisation with Israel ‘remain on the table’. This means that the Saudi government has still not ruled out the possibility of a deal to normalise ties with Israel, even amid this ongoing genocide that is only getting worse. According to the UN and multiple organisations, the entirety of the population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with 576,600 at ‘catastrophic’ levels. Gaza has never in its history had to endure something of this nature, and yet the Saudi government, which is seen as the bastion of Islam, is entertaining the idea of a normalisation deal with the same oppressive state that is directly responsible for this genocide. This will not sit well with its people, and the Saudi government knows it will be a high-risk decision to continue with the normalisation plans once the genocide ends. However, just as the long process in the image above between June 2020 and November 2022 has shown, public opinion can be moulded by time and effort, and it’s likely Saudi Arabia will try to mould its population’s opinion in the space of another few years before a normalisation deal is once again close to being formed. This means that the Palestinian resistance’s decision to resist its siege on October 7th and the act of resistance that followed may have pushed back Saudi Arabia’s normalisation deal with Israel by a good few years at least. However, it must be noted that if Israel’s genocide drags opposing external powers into this crisis, then escalation is an inevitability. If Israel decides to reoccupy Lebanon in response like what they did in 1982 or even push into Syria, it could lead to a regional conflict that will inevitably lead to far more bloodshed and therefore far more anti-Israel sentiment within Saudi Arabia, thus making it more difficult for the Saudi government to make a decision on normalising ties. All in all, any escalation from external powers will help either stop or delay the normalisation of ties with Israel but unfortunately many are reluctant to do so.
