Netanyahu wants endless war in Gaza. But most Israelis don’t want to fight anymore

An Israeli army tank maneuvering along the border fence with northern Gaza on 18 March 2025

Dahlia Scheindlin writes in Haaretz on 18 March 2025:

The Israeli government has never hidden its desire to restart the war. On Tuesday morning, a series of airstrikes throughout Gaza and bullish rhetoric from both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers looked like a major step toward that aim.

For months, it has been clear that this government would eventually ask Israelis to go back to fighting, either through a full-out resurgence of war, or to administer its plans to depopulate Gaza, or to execute and pay for the occupation of Gaza while fighting a permanent insurgency and counterinsurgency that will bleed the country for decades.

As Israel awakens to the serious possibility of renewed full-scale war, will the public rally around these plans? There are numerous reasons to doubt a revival of the country’s wartime morale.

The distraction
In the days before the renewed bombardment of Gaza, the country was consumed by a different kind of shock, after Netanyahu announced his intention to fire Shin Bet security service chief Ronen Bar. In common with many major policy decisions since October 7, 2023, the dismissal trounced Israeli preferences. A poll on Monday found that a plurality of Israeli poll respondents rejected the prime minister’s decision – 43 percent – compared to just one-third who supported it (the rest did not know), in a survey commissioned by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster.

A February survey by the Institute for National Security Studies found that 57 percent of Israelis trust the Shin Bet, including 64 percent among Jewish Israelis, while only 21 percent trust the government that is now trying to fire the head of the agency. Just 27 percent trust Netanyahu in that survey, while, six in 10 Israelis in a Channel 12 survey from early March, conducted by Midgam, believe Netanyahu should resign. Throughout the war, a majority of Israelis have wanted him to resign either immediately or following the war.

In the Channel 12 poll, a majority of 64 percent also wanted Bar to resign – rightfully ascribing blame to his agency’s failure on October 7 – but that’s not the same as being dismissed by a leader they don’t trust.

No way to fight a war
The deterioration of Israelis’ faith in their leadership is inseparable from a little-watched but dramatic development in public opinion: a major loss of confidence in the war itself.

A Palestinian woman gestures at the site of an Israeli strike on a tent camp housing displaced people, in the al-Mawasi designated ‘safe zone’, southern Gaza, 18 March 2025

In the INSS survey from January, 55 percent of all Israelis thought the Israel Defense Forces would win the war in Gaza – although “win” is undefined in the survey. That rate has been roughly stagnant for months: 57 percent last June, with a minor rise to 59 percent in February.

But that trend hides a stark decline among the Jewish population – who are the vast majority of those actually fighting the war. In the INSS survey from mid-October 2023, just days after Hamas’ attack, 92 percent of Jewish Israelis believed the IDF would win. By early 2004, 78 percent gave this response. Last month, 66 percent of Jews believed the IDF would win in Gaza.

The INSS tracking polls also ask whether respondents are confident that Israel will achieve its war aims, though the question didn’t elaborate on what they are. By June 2024, fewer than half of all Israelis – 45 percent – felt sure that all or a large part of its war aims would be achieved (before that, the surveys asked only Jews). This finding has not budged since then: 45 percent of the total sample gave the same answer in February and, at this point, slightly more Israelis – 47 percent – believe the aims will not be achieved.

Once again, the trends among Jewish Israelis are significant. They differ in major ways from Arab respondents, and as noted they are primarily the ones fighting the war. In October 2023, just 21 percent of Jews thought Israel would achieve only a small portion of its war aims in Gaza or none; by this February. that rate had doubled, to 42 percent. Exactly half of Jews said the goals would be achieved.

Most telling of all is how few Israelis actually support a return to fighting in Gaza.

The Israeli Voice Index by the Israel Democracy Institute from late February found that support for stage two of the hostage deal, including “a complete cessation of hostilities, withdrawal from Gaza, and release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of all the hostages,” was rising: from 70 percent who agreed in January to 73 percent the next month.

Also in February, the INSS survey found that just one-quarter (24 percent) of Israelis chose “a return to intensive fighting” out of three options offered for Israel’s next step in Gaza. The result was barely higher among Jews: just 28 percent chose the option to return to fighting.

A government advocating so forcefully for its citizens to fight an endless war will not be pleased to find that the plurality of Israelis, 42 percent, prefer instead for Israel to focus on “ending the war in Gaza and establishing diplomatic agreements.” Even among the Jewish population, a slim plurality of one-third preferred to end the war. These options are different from the Israel Democracy Institute question, which asked about a single option including hostage release – but the pattern paints a picture of reluctance to resume fighting.

Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar attending a Memorial Day event in Jerusalem last year.Credit: Gil Cohen-Magen/AP
To be sure, the left will not be encouraged to learn that in the INSS survey, approximately one-quarter of Israelis chose the third option of “creating the conditions to encourage migration of Palestinians from Gaza,” including 31 percent of Jews. But this is the typical, core level of support for nearly anything this government says or does.

For the remainder of Israelis – from nearly one-half who do not believe Israel can achieve its war aims, to the 60 percent who want Netanyahu to resign, to the 73 percent who prefer a complete end of the war and withdrawal from Gaza – is there any motivation left to fight?

Already in mid-2024, the IDF experienced falling response rates for reservist call-ups. By the time of the cease-fire in January, the problem was even more widespread and continued through March. Haaretz reported this month that “only about half of reservists have been reporting to many army units recently.”

Since then, a majority of Israelis are experiencing the collapse of trust in the decisions of the political leadership; the Tel Aviv encampment for an immediate hostage release deal has been spreading and squeezing the Defense Ministry perimeter alongside angrier, more frequent hostage protests; the democracy protesters from 2023 are calling to flood the streets once again with each fresh government attempt to jettison professionals and guardrails like the Shin Bet chief or the attorney general. Maybe all of this will fade if the war roars back again, but how long can such pain and dissent be suppressed?

Israelis have so far been unable to topple the government through public, street-level opposition. The next elections are far-off, a complete unknown (with apologies). But one of these straws might eventually break the war machine. One can only hope.

This article is reproduced in its entirety