Palestinian society in the West Bank: trust and self-sacrifice

Analysts strive to predict future scenarios of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, concentrating on the question of whether Palestinians will be willing to pay the costs of violent struggle. In contrast with various policy assessments, this paper takes political trust as a factor that enables us to anticipate Palestinian social reactions as a point of departure. We interviewed 90 West Bank inhabitants, focusing on six major issues: the armed struggle against Israel, democracy and human rights, the internal PLO-Hamas rift, the standard of living, corruption in the PA, and political trust in the PA. Our findings match the quantitative results of Khalil Shikaki’s PCPSR public opinion polls of the West Bank. We conclude that the lack of democracy, the continuing internal rift, the low standard of living, and the manifestations of governmental corruption erode political trust within Palestinian society. Based on research from other places around the globe, such a loss of trust dissuades recruiting people for national struggles. Accordingly, a new popular intifada seems unlikely. However, the Palestinians interviewed also objected to the occupation and its ramifications, which is not an encouraging insight for peace-seekers in the Middle East.