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‘Israelis are frustrated, but do they want to stop the war? Not exactly’

Rallying around the flag, low trust in government, rebounding support for Netanyahu: Dahlia Scheindlin unpacks Israel’s peculiar public opinion trends.

By Dana Mills August 30, 2024

Demonstrators protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, and for the release of Israelis held hostage in the Gaza Strip, outside the Kirya army base in Tel Aviv, July 27, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Nearly a year on from the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, the Israeli army continues to wage a devastating war in the Gaza Strip with no apparent end in sight. There is now abundant evidence that senior political and security figures failed to heed warnings in the lead-up to the Hamas-led October 7 attack, and the army has acknowledged that it was too slow to respond. Investigations have confirmedthat senior commanders employed the infamous “Hannibal directive,” permitting Israeli forces to endanger the lives of hostages in order to prevent them from being kidnapped alive. 

Since then, more hostages have returned in body bags than have been freed by the military operation in Gaza, and a soldier has been killed in the fighting at a rate of more than one per day since the start of the ground invasion. Tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced from communities near the Lebanon border and in the “Gaza Envelope.” Israel stands accused of genocide and war crimes — with the possibility of arrest warrants for its leaders — in The Hague, and the country’s credit rating has been downgraded by two major U.S. agencies.

And yet, polls show that Israelis still overwhelmingly support the war, albeit with caveats — and are even coming back around to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

To try to make sense of the war’s popularity in Israel and understand the mood among the public, +972 Magazine sat down with one of its founders, Dahlia Scheindlin — a political consultant, public opinion analyst, and author of “The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel.” The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let’s start broad: what are the main trends in Israeli public opinion since October 7?

The basic trends that I’m following concern Israeli politics, various aspects of the war, and the bigger issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’m using longitudinal data [tracking the same subjects over an extended period of time] and comparisons to other countries. 

What we would expect to see in wartime is the “rally around the flag” effect, and among Israeli Jews we did see just that: very high and sweeping support for the war. Palestinian citizens of Israel, it should be noted, have consistently displayed much lower levels of support for the army’s offensive.

We’ve also seen the popularization among Israeli Jews of some very extreme positions regarding the war, including opposing humanitarian aid and complete justification of almost all military actions. Commonly held opinions also include the argument that Israel should strike Hezbollah and Lebanon hard, and that Israel should occupy Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there. 

Israelis watch smoke rising over Gaza from Israeli airstrikes, during a demonstration calling to re-establish Jewish settlements in the Strip, May 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)

Meanwhile, backing for a two-state solution fell to an all-time low. Overall support for it dropped to around 40 percent, and among Israeli Jews only it fell even lower — to around 30-35 percent. 

Whereas in other countries with a “rally around the flag” effect you tend to see strong support for the leadership, in Israel we saw the opposite. Support for the leadership among Israeli Jews plunged to its lowest levels ever, which is very unusual in the first months during wartime. This trend has been very consistent. 

Netanyahu and his Likud party had terrible ratings, losing about 50 percent of their support. The government [as a whole] lost a third of its support, and generic questions about public trust in government fell below 20 percent, in juxtaposition to faith in the strength of Israeli society itself. 

But now Netanyahu’s support is starting to bounce back, right?

Yes, we’re seeing trust in the government recover pretty consistently across all surveys — starting in April [when Israel assassinated an Iranian Quds Force commander in Damascus, and Iran responded with a missile attack]. A series of polls in recent weeks have shown that Likud would win the most votes if elections were held today, and Netanyahu himself is once again coming out on top in head-to-head surveys against opposition leader Benny Gantz. He’s not in a stellar position, but he is more or less where he was before the war.

This recovery is linked to the new threats from Iran and Hezbollah following Israel’s assassinations in Beirut and Tehran. This has strengthened the sense among Israeli Jews that Israel is constantly surrounded by enemies. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a plenum session and vote at the assembly hall of the Knesset, Jerusalem, June 11, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

As time has gone on, however, we’ve also seen attitudes toward the war become more skeptical. It’s not for lack of desire; we absolutely see consistent numbers of people who think the war is justified. But for questions that ask if Israel can achieve “total victory,” we see a decline in confidence, with around two-thirds rejecting Netanyahu’s claims that such an outcome is within reach.

Similarly, we see a stabilization and even a slight recovery for certain long-term questions that we test regarding peace agreements. That isn’t because people think peace is around the corner, but it’s a barometer: it reflects the fact that people were feeling in a very extreme mood in the first six months of the war, and are now landing back to something like their previous positions. 

What do you make of the trends concerning support for a hostage deal? Are people willing to make concessions — such as a ceasefire — so that their fellow citizens can return home? And how does this relate to the proclaimed military goals of “total victory”? 

There is always a majority or plurality that supports a deal for the return of hostages. Even when a complete ceasefire is proposed, you have a majority who prefer to pay the price. The fact is that there is no hostage deal without a permanent ceasefire, withdrawal of Israeli forces, Palestinians going back to northern Gaza, and the release of high-level Palestinian prisoners. 

It’s hard to draw a clear trend, because each time the Israeli public is asked different questions. No one asks “Do you want the hostages released?” as the result would be 100 percent “Yes.” Equally, I have not seen a question that asks “Do you support or oppose the war?” or “Do you think the number of Palestinian casualties is justified as a means to pressuring Hamas?” It’s only ever asked in terms of compromises: “What price would you be willing to pay for a hostage deal?”

Israelis protest for the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv, July 23, 2024. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Have you seen changes in the attitudes of Israeli Jews toward Palestinian citizens of Israel, and vice versa?

There was some polling about this at the beginning of the war, [gauging] whether there would be internal riots, but so far there haven’t been any. I can’t recall many polls since then. There has been suspicion of Israeli Jews among Palestinian citizens after October 7, and a lot of fear, and perhaps discomfort with what Hamas did. And there is despair among Palestinian citizens about the future: how will they go on living in this situation?

What trends do you see among Israeli Jews regarding enlisting in the military campaign versus refusing or deserting? 

There’s very high responsiveness and volunteerism [for the army]. At the same time, I have heard about a great deal of hardship — very intense stories about people whose livelihoods are collapsing, who are in post-trauma after being sent for one or two rounds of military service. 

I heard that the military prisons are full because there are Israelis trying to get out of doing service — not because they’re peaceniks or lefties against the war, but because they can’t handle it. I think there’s a very severe problem with morale, even though I know that [active support for the war effort] seems to have been high so far. But there are issues with stress and financial hardship because reserve duty is so long. 

How do you explain the low level of civil disobedience among Israelis — especially when considering the large demonstrations against the judicial coup in 2023, the mass dissent against the Lebanon war, and even opposition to previous Gaza operations? It feels like on every level — whether protests on the streets, or public figures willing to speak out — there’s been silence and complicity from the Jewish-Israeli population.

October 7 was a watershed moment that startled Israeli Jews and has been manipulated and fetishized for political gain since it occurred. I don’t see much opposition to the brutal elements of the war among the Jewish-Israeli public because there’s no real change in sympathy for it. Perhaps there are more moderate percentages who oppose humanitarian aid, but that’s about it. As I said, the only thing that has changed is the public’s confidence in Israel’s ability to achieve its war aims. 

At the same time, there have been large demonstrations against the government, or for the hostages, that I cannot recall ever seeing in wartime. Among Palestinian citizens of Israel, there is less inclination to protest than among Jews due to fear of persecution.

The polls show considerable frustration: the Jewish-Israeli public doesn’t believe that the government is prosecuting the war for the right reasons. Pretty much all Israeli Jews want to “destroy Hamas,” but more than half of Israelis believe Netanyahu is prolonging the military campaign to keep himself in power. Does that mean they actually want to stop the war? Not exactly.