October 08, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
• In his recent remarks, opposition leader Yair Lapid delivered a scathing critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointedly declaring that Netanyahu’s sole legacy would be the ruin of the occupying entity – a statement heavy with significance. This sharp tone comes from a man who, at the outset of the Gaza war, had abandoned calls for a prisoner exchange to align with the 94% of settlers who support the war of vengeance on Gaza following the Al-Aqsa Flood. To understand this shift, we must once again turn to the opinion polls.
• The political approach toward Palestine and the region is largely the same between the opposition and the government, with tactical differences driven by power struggles and shaped by opinion polls. There isn’t a single opposition figure calling for a political solution to the Palestinian issue, nor does anyone even remotely echo the rhetoric of Yitzhak Rabin.
• When Netanyahu pivoted from the war on Gaza to the war on Lebanon, it wasn’t driven by the strategic security needs of the entity. Instead, it was influenced by polling data showing that support for the Gaza war had dwindled from 94% in October 2023 to 57% by the end of the year, then to 38%, 27%, and finally to just 20% by the end of July. Meanwhile, 65% of settlers supported launching a war on Lebanon.
• Recent polls, taken in the aftermath of the war’s first days – after the initial celebrations of security successes and assassinations, capped by the killing of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah – paint a clear picture. Despite the lack of ground breakthroughs and the continued barrage of rockets on the northern settlements, which have now reached deeper into Haifa and the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israeli opinion is shifting.
• The Israeli Broadcasting Authority, citing a poll, reported that 61% of Israelis do not feel safe in the country.
• A survey published by Maariv found that 53% believe it is time to end the war on Gaza, while 62% said the main goal should be the return of Israeli prisoners from Gaza.
• Despite the ongoing war on Lebanon and the promises surrounding it, 73% of those polled said the war had failed a year after the Al-Aqsa Flood, and 52% have lost confidence in the army.
• It’s clear that Netanyahu’s wars have lost the public’s support within the occupying entity, a fact that will have serious consequences for the military if the war continues. The longer the conflict drags on, the more likely it is that mounting losses – whether from rocket fire threatening the settlers’ security or casualties on the battlefronts, which now stretch from the north to the south – will hasten the war’s end.
