RE’IM, ISRAEL – OCTOBER 04: People visit the Nova festival memorial site on October 04, 2024 in Re’im, Israel.
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images
One year after the bloodiest day in its history, Israel is at war on multiple fronts. The country’s military has diminished Hamas in Gaza, but in the process killed almost 42,000 people in Gaza, including more than 10,000 children, and reduced much of the territory to rubble. Responding to Hezbollah’s provocations on its northern border, Israel has assassinated most of the group’s leadership, launched an invasion of Southern Lebanon, and continues to barrage Beirut and its suburbs with bombs, killing at least 2,000 people there. And it has escalated tensions with Iran, its ultimate regional enemy and the driving force behind Hezbollah. Now, the world waits to see how Israel will respond to Iran’s recent missile attacks on its cities and towns.
Israel garnered much of the globe’s sympathy after Hamas murdered roughly 1200 people on October 7, but its harsh response has severely damaged its reputation internationally. Yet the Israeli public sees things differently. To get a sense of how average citizens are thinking about the continuing war in Gaza and possible fronts in a regional war, I spoke with author and political scientist Dahlia Scheindlin, a political scientist and writer who is an expert on Israeli public opinion.
Based on what you know and hear, do you feel there’s more support among Israelis for the invasion of Lebanon, and strikes against Hezbollah and Iran, than there is for the war in Gaza? Is it seen as a little less morally complicated?
There’s a lot less ambiguity around this. There’s a very widespread consensus that the war in Gaza is justified, but there’s been a lot more social and public debate for decades over the wisdom of Israel’s policy with the Palestinians, and of course Netanyahu’s management of the war in Gaza — whether it’s coming at the expense of the hostages, the fact that it has no clear end point, and that it serves Netanyahu’s political interests, so he’s making decisions for that reason.
I think most of those things are not present in the Israeli public’s mind with regard to the regional escalations. And there’s a good reason for that. Hezbollah decided to attack Israel in sovereign territory. They say they were aiming at military targets, but they made Israeli sovereign territory uninhabitable for civilians from October 8, before anybody knew how severe it was going to be in Gaza. There was no actual justification for Hezbollah deciding to undertake this initiative; from an Israeli perspective, they just are attacking Israel for the sake of attacking Israel. It has nothing to do with any of the other divisive political issues with relation to the Palestinians.
Not that this worked out very well for Hezbollah.
I’ve argued that from Hezbollah’s perspective, this has been a total failure: The attacks didn’t cause Israel to stop the war in Gaza. But leaving that aside, from the Israeli public perspective, it’s a matter of militia groups that oppose Israel’s existence anywhere. And if you read the groups’ communiques and their speeches, frankly, the Israelis are right. They don’t believe in the Zionist entity. They barely use the word Israel. They call everybody settlers. That has been the nature of the Hezbollah attack and all the other militias that are backed by Iran, whether it was Houthi attacks or the occasional attacks or rockets or UAVs from Iraqi militias, Shia militias backed by Iran.
So from the Israeli perspective, there’s a consensus that there’s no way to appease the Iranian proxy network. There’s no political demand that can be met. It’s simply opposition to the existence of Israel, unrelated to anything to do with the toxic and divisive issue going on for decades between Israel and the Palestinians. In a social norms sense, I think there is much less complication or ambiguity about the fact that Israel must respond.
Beyond that, over the course of the year, the fight between Israel and Hezbollah played out in the rule-governed paradigm that had been in place since 2006. They’d developed a set of unspoken rules: No hitting civilian targets, no high-level assassinations, no ground incursions. And in fact, there hadn’t been very many escalations since 2006. It really was a pretty quiet border. Even after Hezbollah began striking Israel on October 8, at one in the morning, the exchange of fire was still somewhat restrained. But the fact is that both sides were undertaking more and more escalatory action. Israel had undertaken its assassinations. Hezbollah was increasing the number of rockets it was firing into Israel month after month.
Yes, you could argue that it’s Israel who escalated from this norm of back and forth low-level attacks, because they did start carrying out those assassination.
Well, absolutely. Israel began the assassinations. The only thing is that this tends to obscure the fact that it was Hezbollah’s initiative to join the struggle, to join the attacks of Hamas. And that didn’t have to be the case. It was their decision. You can’t just jump into a violent military conflict and attack sovereign territory and expect everybody to stay within the rules.
The invasion and the strikes have killed over 2,000 people in Lebanon. I’m sure that troubles people, but it’s seen as justified?
I’m setting aside my personal take on this stuff, but for most Israelis, yes. Having said that, opinions are divided about the best way for Israel to undertake this action. Every survey asks in slightly different ways, which makes it hard to compare over time. But overall, we’ve seen something like 55, 60, 65 percent support for Israel to conduct a major strike on Hezbollah from the early stages of the war. And there were times in the first couple of months where it was even higher among the Jewish population, reaching up to 80 percent.
However, when you give people different options — like whether there should be a limited strike only on Hezbollah positions in a way that avoids escalation, or increments that move all the way to the other end of the spectrum, which is a massive blow against Hezbollah, the risk of regional war and even occupying Southern Lebanon — when you give options like those, in surveys that have been conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies, then attitudes are much more divided. And you see that people break down almost half and half for the two escalatory responses versus two more limited responses.
What about an actual invasion?
Last week, before we actually knew that the ground invasion had begun, there was a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute showing that people were divided down the middle, and that just over 40 percent, not even a majority of Israelis, supported a ground operation. And among Jews, it was something like 47 percent to 41 percent. So more Jews support it than don’t support it, but still, not a full majority.
And I have to say that I was surprised by that, because I thought support would be higher, But it makes sense because it’s consistent with the kind of divisions we’ve seen throughout the year when people are told of the different consequences and logical extensions of some of these policies. And I think that’s not because there’s moral ambiguity, but because Israelis are genuinely concerned about two things. One is full-out regional escalation that gets out of control — and everybody’s worried about what will happen now with Iran, no question. And the other reason is that Israelis have a collective memory of what it was to be involved in an occupation of Southern Lebanon for 18 years, after which Israelis basically said, “What are we doing here? We’re losing lives, we’re losing soldiers.”
Going back to Iran for a moment, is there any domestic price to pay for Prime Minister Netanyahu if he goes after them in the most extreme way? The U.S. isn’t stopping him. They seem to be saying, “Maybe don’t do that,” but there’s no stick there.
I would go further. I would say the U.S. has had a complete turnaround of its policy over the last week, though some people would argue with me that it’s not such a complete turnaround.
Because of the strike on Israel?
I don’t know exactly why, but it’s almost like they let down any pretense of trying to de-escalate the region, which had been — at least rhetorically and to some extent in terms of their investment of diplomatic time — one of their biggest priorities, with some moments of success. Since the assassination of Nasrallah, it seems like the administration has basically taken a different perspective, which is: “We let Israel do what it wants on the regional level. We’ll be there to defend it. We will not really hold it back. We might suggest that they not attack nuclear facilities in Iran.” As Biden said, “We don’t tell them what to do. We advise.” This seems like a subtlety — because you could critique how effective the U.S. was before things escalated.
You certainly could.
I agree with that on some level.
There’s presidential politics going on here, too. I think that certainly has something to do with their posture.
Of course it does, but I do think that if it’s reached the level where the U.S. is no longer making a pretense of trying to keep the region from escalating even on a rhetorical level, then I think it is a fundamental change of perspective. In terms of a price to be paid, the short answer is no. There’s no real domestic price to be paid for Israel going all out and attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, except that I don’t think there’s been a significant conversation about what the consequences would be. And by the way, I think it was back in the spring when I wrote an article arguing the very same thing about Lebanon. I just didn’t think there had been enough discussion about what the consequences could be of Hezbollah retaliating seriously.
As it happens, Israel has apparently managed to incapacitate Hezbollah sufficiently so that it’s only been able to continue firing barrage at the north, for the most part. It has not fired its long-range capacity munitions and has not taken out Israel’s civilian infrastructure, which is one of the things everybody was worried about. But Iran still could do those things, and I think that there’s also a possibility that Iran could strike at Israel’s energy facilities, and the energy installations of other countries, which it has already threatened to do in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Oil prices have gone up as a result.
So I think that the debate, the widespread public awareness of what the possible consequences will be of a full-scale escalation with Iran have not really been a prominent part of the conversation. And as a result, you hear Israeli public figures, people from within the coalition, and some retired military people saying, “This is the time. Hit Iran. Hit them hard. Go for it. Don’t stop now.” You think, does nobody ever consider that there will be retribution for those things? Do people think we live in a world where actions all of a sudden don’t have a reaction?
Even the Hezbollah strikes might have long-term costs, obviously. This idea that they’ve just eliminated the threat seems like a fairy tale. It’s not like this is a permanent solution.
No, but the jury’s out. A lot of this is dynamic, and I would’ve been the first to say beforehand, or the moment Nasrallah was assassinated, that this is exceedingly dangerous, and that it’s just going to create such a stronger will to rebuild this resistance force. And I did write that. But I think that we all need to have a little humility. Iran is facing the destruction of Hezbollah, its prized possession, the jewel in the crown, and Hamas is also being largely incapacitated.
In the long term we don’t know, but I would say I’ve moved from saying this is going to be a disaster that will backfire on Israel, to saying I actually don’t know. Maybe Israel will have more success in this mission of destroying the proxy network than we think, especially having talked to Iranian colleagues who acknowledge that this raises questions within Iran’s own domestic scene. There’s plenty of criticism of the regime in Iran, and that is significant as well. They’ve had to put down any number of civic uprisings for other reasons over the years with a pretty severe level of violence.
I don’t know if this will be a source of an uprising, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I feel like Iran is deeply divided. I think there’s a lot of parallels between the Iranian public and the Israeli public. I don’t want to overstate the case. I don’t think Israel has ever been successful, not once, in fomenting severe internal discord among its enemies or opponents, and causing society to rise up against an undesirable leadership. It has never happened. It didn’t happen in Gaza. It’s not going to happen in Iran for that reason. But it could open cracks and drag Iran into a war that its own people eventually get tired of. Who knows? I’m just saying there’s a lot that is still dynamic, and I’m trying to have a little humility.
Netanyahu appeared to be in serious political danger in the aftermath of October 7. But he’s the ultimate survivor, and this tack of escalation and aggression seems to be paying off for him. Is that right? And is there any appetite now for new leadership, or is this just the way it’s going to be?
His recovery began around April, very slowly and incrementally, but clearly. It happened immediately after the assassination of the top Al-Quds commander in Damascus, and then the escalation with Iran during which Israelis felt under this very, very unifying threat. And they felt that Israel managed it well. From then on, his numbers started to get better. What we call the head-to-head competition — who’s best suited to be prime minister. His party was doing very poorly for the first six months after October 7, and then began a moderate recovery.
It finally reached first place immediately after the two assassinations at the end of July, of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh. I find that the inflection points for his improvement always happen around Israel escalating in the regional arena and then being seen to manage the fallout well. So yes it’s correct that he’s more popular than he’s been in a while. But what’s interesting — and this is where it gets more complicated than journalism can usually handle — is that there’s a limit to it. So far, he has a ceiling.
In polling, his party has continued to climb up from 16 parliamentary seats at a low point in the first half of the year, back up to 20, 21, 22. Now over the last two couple of weeks, he’s gone back up to 25 or even 26 parliamentary seats out of 120, so that’s pretty good.
So he’s definitely coming in first place, but he’s still not getting 32 seats, which is what he won in the elections in 2022. And his government is still not getting beyond 54 out of 120 seats, 10 seats lower than they got in the elections, and basically where they were on the eve of the war. So they had an unpopular year because of the judicial overhaul and the chaos that created. The moment that plan was released in early January 2023, the government’s ratings began to fall. And they had not been able to get a majority in surveys for the original coalition at any time, except with one exception, and that is with Netanyahu’s pet pollster.
My impression is that there have been a bunch of quasi-challengers who criticize him, and then he inevitably outmaneuvers them. And even if a challenger did succeed, it’s not like they would institute some drastic change in policy. Netanyahu-ism wins out.
Yeah. I think that’s pretty much correct, and it’s to the great shame of the opposition in Israel. Anybody who claims to oppose Netanyahu — their entire raison d’etre, as they see themselves, is to criticize Netanyahu while claiming that they could do a better job doing the same things.
Is it just that they’re politically less skilled than him?
I’m trying to think if that’s a fair characterization. Yes, they are less sophisticated than him. There’s a self-reinforcing dynamic when you’re in power for so long. You have more skills than the other people by virtue of your experience, and then you can outwit people for the future. You’re prime minister for so long, you always dominate the media and the message. And his competitors have no experience winning elections, so that creates a self-reinforcing political weakness.
But I think that it’s a mistake to attribute it just to that. I think the fact is that very few have even tried to propose an alternative vision in a fundamental way. With a couple of qualifications, no Israeli politician is really willing to stand up and say, “Israel cannot continue to occupy the Palestinians and undermine their self-determination forever. It is a disaster for them, a disaster for us. It’s unsustainable, and it will lead to certain destruction, and here’s the way I propose to change it.”
The qualification is that the leaders of labor and merits have argued forever that there should be a two-state solution. Even Yair Lapid, when he was briefly prime minister, went before the UN General Assembly and said that he supports a two-state solution. He has, in a very mealy-mouthed way, occasionally uttered the words since the war. But they’re not throwing their weight behind these visions. And certainly during the war, they’re all singularly focused on the war, at best criticizing Netanyahu for being motivated by political reasons, and completely rallying behind everything to do with the regional escalation.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t rally around the regional escalation, but there’s no critique of how it’s being done. There’s no critique of the danger of regional war. There’s nobody making the case for a series of regional diplomatic agreements that could be a linkage of de-escalation.
Isn’t that because those ideas are way out of tune with public opinion at the moment?
That’s true. It always sounds a little bit evasive to say they should have started earlier, but I can say that with authority because I’ve been saying for years that they should be making that case.
And 10 years ago, Lapid should have been more forceful about offering an alternative path for the country if he really wanted to make the center, the mainstream center, see the future possibilities differently. With Labor and Meretz, it’s harder to blame them because they have been struggling with having this image of supporting concessions for the sake of a two-state solution. And it has destroyed them — they’ve never been able to shake it. That’s the reason why they lose, there’s no question. But you would’ve needed people from the mainstream center and even the moderate right. Because on the moderate right, there’s a significant portion who understands this. I know this from years of surveys. You always have about double the portion in the moderate versus the firm right who support a two-state solution, or the basic parameters. And it’s not a huge amount, but I don’t know, let’s say on average it is about 40 percent versus 20 percent among the firm right.
And so somebody would’ve had to capitalize on that by making an argument. And the people who are best placed to do it are the security people. Those who go into left-wing parties, like Yair Golan — what usually happens is that being part of a left-wing political camp taints them as opposed to them bringing their military credibility to the left-wing. So it has to be somebody from the center and from the moderate right, and they just refuse to do it. And if they were to do it as a critical mass, it would be even more powerful. But they themselves simply don’t believe in those things. So there is a self-reinforcing social dynamic. It’s not all about them being small-minded and running after the public, but you would really need visionaries of stature and authority.
Gaza, meanwhile, has almost faded from the headlines, which is crazy to think about considering the 41,000-plus dead civilians. What do people want to happen there at this point? Is there more support for a ceasefire and hostage deal than there has been in the past?
It’s crazy. I know. And there’s ongoing fighting all the time, people being killed every day. I try to look at the Israeli public on this in terms of what I myself experience, which is that it’s a constant news hysteria. You don’t know where the next major devastating event is coming from. And so I understand why Israelis aren’t as focused on Gaza now, because they’re busy worrying about how to avoid ballistic missiles. But on the other hand, there is a lacuna in relation to Gaza. Netanyahu has managed to successfully eradicate the idea of a long-term political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from global consciousness. He did that before October 7 and since October 7, by making it kind of a no-go zone for policymakers to talk about. And by the same logic, Israelis, I think, have simply become conditioned to think that there’s no conversation around a long-term resolution for the problem of Gaza or the Palestinians in general.
Israelis tend to view them separately, as if Gaza is some sort of separate entity, which it’s not — it’s part of Palestine. But they’ve long been convinced that Gaza is its own separate problem, and there is no real conversation among the Israeli public about what should happen there in the long term. It’s all immediately focused on Israel winning the war, except that people don’t really know what that means.
Before the most recent regional escalation, I think there was some erosion in surveys of confidence that Israel could achieve its goals. People were increasingly wondering: What does this mean? Why are we continuing this war? Especially because of the hostages. And I will say that alongside very strong support for the war in the kinds of indicators that are tested in surveys, there is also consistently a majority who support a hostage release deal that includes some of the terms of the ceasefire.
And yet it seems further than ever from happening. Neither side seems particularly eager for one.
Yeah, that’s true. The only indications we’ve had that Israel is drawing down on some level is first of all, the announcement of the chief of staff at Hamas has been militarily incapacitated. And the military resources being redirected to the north — they probably wouldn’t have escalated this significantly in the north and the regional arena if they weren’t confident that they could free up some of those forces and battalions from Gaza. Making those declarations is a way of saying they can put this on a lower level for now. But, of course, individual operations go on.
There’s no end in sight.
It’s a quagmire. There’s no end in sight.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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