[The Long Game Brief] Palestinian Issue Moves Forward During Wars

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How is the war in Iran affecting the Palestinian issue?

Khaled Elgindy, senior research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said **Iran’s support for Palestine** has long served both political and ideological purposes.

The relationship emerged during a period of significant regional change. Iran’s revolution took place the same year Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, marking the beginning of a new regional order. As traditional forms of Arab nationalism lost influence, Tehran increasingly sought to establish itself as a supporter of the Palestinian cause.

That relationship has never been without limits. Iran and Hamas, for example, come from different political and religious traditions. Their partnership has often reflected shared interests rather than shared ideology.

The political value of that relationship appears to have grown since the war in Gaza began following the October 7 attack.

Arab citizens continue to view Iran’s nuclear ambitions with concern while simultaneously expressing support for Tehran’s position on Palestine. The findings point to a distinction that appears throughout the region; attitudes toward Iran itself often differ from attitudes toward its role in the Palestinian issue.

Michael Robbins, Project Director and Co-Principal Investigator of Arab Barometer and senior research specialist at Princeton University, **told Atlas Broadcasting** that public perceptions of regional threats remain closely connected to the Palestinian question.

Robbins said Arab Barometer researchers observed significant changes while conducting surveys in Tunisia during the opening weeks of the Gaza war. Support for the United States fell sharply during that period. Attitudes toward Iran followed a different trajectory:

“We didn’t ask about Iran itself “We asked about the foreign policies of Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader. Day by day, you could trace it, and one day it jumps by about 10 points. We looked back, and that was the day after he asserted that there was a genocide taking place in Gaza.”

For the first time in the organization’s data, Khamenei received as much support among Tunisian respondents than Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and more than UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed in a Sunni-majority country.

Robbins attributed the shift to the central place the Palestinian issue occupies in regional public opinion:

“At a level, my enemy’s enemy is my friend. If Israel is the biggest enemy and Iran is fighting Israel, then Iran is your friend because they’re fighting your enemy.”

The Palestinian issue has become intertwined with Iran’s regional standing, particularly as rival diplomatic frameworks have struggled to gain traction.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 between Israel and several Arab states, sought to deepen regional cooperation while reducing the centrality of the Palestinian issue in diplomatic negotiations.

Analysts remain divided on their long-term impact, though many argue the Gaza war altered the political environment that made the agreements possible.

“The Abraham Accords were designed to circumvent and basically permanently put the Palestinian issue in formaldehyde, if not just make it disappear. The fact that this also strengthened Iran’s claim to be the champion of the Palestinian issue was a side product. I don’t think it was the goal.”

In closing, **the rising prices of food, fertilizers and energy** provide the foundation for another series of global instability, from which the COVID-19 Pandemic had already sowed the seeds of chaos in various countries from the African continent to North America and beyond.

October 7 accelerated massive change in the regional security envrionment of the Middle East region. At the same time, support for Palestinian statehood has gained ground internationally, and among a different kind of Gen Z population.

European Union member states have formally recognized Palestine, while public opinion surveys in the United States show narrowing gaps between sympathy for Israelis and Palestinians. This doesn’t mean that those new international political gains will translate into stronger Palestinian institutions in international or multilateral organizations in the future.

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