Footnote to the preceding, Did They or Didn't They? Div.

That is, did the Israeli leaders know this or didn't they?

The Pew Research Center said on Thursday that its 2008 Global Attitudes survey

found significant opposition to [Hamas] in several predominantly Muslim countries, not to mention considerable opposition to suicide bombing - a frequent tactic of Hamas in the past - as well as deep reservations about one of Hamas' chief sponsors, Iran. ...

Among the eight countries with sizeable Muslim populations surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2008, Hamas received a positive rating in only one, Jordan, where 55% voiced a favorable view of the organization while 37% expressed an unfavorable opinion. Still, Jordanian attitudes toward Hamas were less positive than in 2007, when 62% gave the group a favorable rating, and 36% a negative one.

Hamas' image also declined in neighboring Egypt. In 2007, Egyptians were split (49% favorable, 49% unfavorable). By 2008, however, only 42% had a favorable opinion, while 50% held a negative view.

Approval of Hamas remained steady in Lebanon - but at the low figure of 25%. And in Turkey, support dropped from the low 14% to the barely-detectable 6%. (In the other four countries with significant numbers of Muslims surveyed - Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Tanzania - large numbers were not familiar enough with Hamas to render an opinion.)

Even more significantly, Pew reports that while in its 2007 survey, Palestinians held a favorable view of Hamas by 62 to 33 percent,

[a] Nov. 20-23, 2008 poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center found that 37% of Palestinians would vote for Fatah in legislative elections, compared with just 20% for Hamas. In the Fatah-controlled West Bank, Fatah led Hamas by a 35-18% margin. More interestingly, Fatah also led by a 40-22% margin in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, conducted December 3-5, 2008, also found that Fatah was more popular than Hamas in both the West Bank and Gaza.

However, tragically, Pew's results also showed attitudes in the surveyed countries to be highly negative toward Jews and revealed a good deal of pessimism about the chances for Israeli and Palestinian coexistence. So to the extent that Hamas becomes symbolic of Palestinian resistance to Israel, to that same extent it can attract solidified and increased support if it merely survives the Israeli attack - and even the IDF admits that eliminating Hamas is beyond its ability.

Now, the notion that the Israeli assault could potentially increase support for Hamas has been on most commentators' lips, but the changes indicated by these survey numbers was not. While Israeli officials would not have known about the Pew Research figures, which were just released, I simply cannot believe they were unaware of the results of the polling done in November and December about the popularity of Hamas versus Fatah.

Which means that Israel, while claiming it wants to undermine Hamas, undertook military action all but guaranteed to increase support for Hamas - and which in fact appears to have "galvanized" support for Hamas in the West bank - at the very time support for the group was declining.

This begs an obvious question. I think I've already made my answer clear.