Poll Reveals Frightening Popularity of Revolutionary Islamism

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
20 December '10

There’s a lot of interesting material in the Pew Foundation's latest poll of the Middle East, a survey that focuses on attitudes toward Islamism and revolutionary Islamist groups. The analysis that accompanies the poll, however, is not very good, so here is mine.

For example, in evaluating attitudes toward Hamas and Hizballah, Pew says that they receive “mixed ratings from Muslim publics [while] opinions of al-Qaida and its leader, Usama bin Ladin, are consistently negative….” The implication is that the poll shows that people in these countries are not radical. Actually, the poll shows the precise opposite.

To begin with, let's look at Jordan. There, 55 percent say they like Hizballah (against 43 percent negative) while 60 percent are favorable (compared to 34 percent negative) toward Hamas. Yet this is even more impressive than the figures indicate. Jordan is a staunchly Sunni country whose government opposes the ambitions of Iran and Syria, indeed it often identifies the threat as coming from Shia Muslims. Hizballah is a Shia group which also is an agent of Iran and Syria. For a majority to praise that organization—conscious of strong government disapproval—is phenomenal.

The figures for Hamas can be more easily explained by the Palestinian connection. Yet the difference between support for Hamas and for Hizballah in terms of public opinion isn’t that great. And liking Hamas also suggests that Jordan's people--of whom a majority are Palestinian--prefer Hamas over Fatah and the Palestinian Authority—Hamas's rival.

(Read full "Poll Reveals Frightening Popularity of Revolutionary Islamism")

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