Most Israeli Jews back the Iran War. Among Arab citizens, the numbers are vastly different

People sit next to photographs of Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas as they take shelter during air raid sirens warning of incoming strikes by Iran, Tel Aviv June 2025

Linda Dayan reports in Haaretz on 19 June 2025:

The Israeli public supports the government’s decision to attack Iran, a survey from the Israel Democracy Institute released on Thursday shows, but there are major gaps in how the Jewish and Arab public perceive of the new war front.

Among Israeli Jews, 82 percent support the decision to strike Iran and its timing, the survey prepared by the Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research found. Ten percent more said that they support the move, but believe that the timing was wrong, as it comes after over 600 days of fighting in Gaza and with 53 hostages still in Hamas captivity.

Even among Jews who consider themselves left-wing, the majority – 57 percent – support the attack on Iran. Sixty-eight percent of Jewish respondents said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s considerations for launching the attack were objective security-related concerns, with 19 percent saying that he was motivated by chiefly by subjective political considerations.

The numbers are vastly different among the Israeli Arabs surveyed: Just 11 percent said that they supported the decision to strike Iran, with 12.5 percent saying that they believe that the timing was wrong, and 65 percent opposing the move outright. Almost 20 percent of Arab respondents said that Netanyahu’s considerations for launching the war were likely security-related; 68 percent said that they were subjective and political.

The majority of both groups, though, said that they are “very worried or fairly worried” about their personal safety or the safety of their families in the foreseeable future. Among Jews, 66 percent expressed this; for Arab respondents, it rose to 89 percent. Most Israelis – about two-thirds of the Jewish and Arab public – estimate that the war will end within a month, or even less.

Most Israelis – 58 percent – believe that Israel’s security is one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s central considerations. Among those who identify as left-wing, though, that number is much lower, at just 31 percent. The percent of Israelis who believe that Trump is prioritizing Israel’s security has risen significantly from just 43 percent in May, which the IDI attributed to the president’s visit to the Arab Gulf and his nuclear negotiations with Iran during that time.

But, the institute’s researchers noted, this is inverted among the Arab population. In May, 66 percent of Arab respondents said that they believed that to a large extent, that Israel’s security is one of Trump’s central considerations. Now, that number stands at 43 percent, because the president has not yet joined the war with Iran.

The survey was conducted via the internet between June 15 and 17, with 594 men and women interviewed in Hebrew and 143 in Arabic, constituting a nationally representative sample of the adult population in Israel aged 18 and over. The maximum sampling error was ±3.61 percent at a confidence level of 95 percent.

This article is reproduced in its entirety