(JNS) — A large majority of Israelis are against acceding to American demands to shift to a less intensive phase of the war against Hamas in Gaza, a survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute shows.
Sixty-six percent of respondents reject the Biden administration’s calls to change the IDF’s strategy to one that “reduces the heavy bombing of densely populated areas.”
When broken down by ethnicity and political affiliation, 75% of Jewish Israelis oppose the change, including 72% of Jews in the political center and 87% of right-wing Jews.
In contrast, 56% of Arab Israelis and 57% of left-wing Jewish Israelis believe that Israel should shift the war to a more targeted strategy as President Joe Biden demands.
When asked who they would like to see as prime minister after the war, 30.5% of respondents said that they did not know, chose not to respond or replied “no one.”
Of those that did give a name, National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz was the top choice at 23%, followed by incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with 15% support, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at 6.5%, Yesh Atid Party head Yair Lapid at 6.2%, and Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir at 1.5%.
Among respondents who voted for Netanyahu’s Likud Party in the last election, only 36% said that they would like to see him continue as prime minister. Just 28% of Jewish Israelis and 12% of Arab Israelis believe that Netanyahu will keep his current coalition together after the war.
