 Hello friends and subscribers. Very warm welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell bringing you today's video from Jerusalem in Israel against the backdrop of the ongoing military operation conducted by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip, which has set itself the target of eradicating Hamas. And it's a very, very slow war that the IDF is is operating in Gaza, involving very careful movements of forces to isolate the Strip in half, set up evacuation corridors, and then very, very methodically move through Gaza 100 meters by 100 meters as they're trying to disrupt the vast tunnel infrastructure that Hamas is built and basically eliminate Hamas's capabilities entirely. So while that's going on in the Gaza Strip, and now that this war has been going on for a bit over a month, attention is finally starting to turn a little bit to what's going to happen afterwards. Now, regarding the practical details of what's going to happen afterwards, Benjamin Ahniah who the Israeli Prime Minister said a few days ago that Israel is going to plan to maintain an ongoing security presence in the Gaza Strip, which to state the obvious excludes a couple of other scenarios that some people were thinking likely, one of which would be that the PA, the Palestinian Authority, which maintains autonomy over pockets of the West Bank, would be the would that Israel would kind of forcibly bring them in to Gaza to maintain law and order. Another possibility was an international consortium being set up. And that is one possibility that I think has would probably enjoy very limited public support in Israel because if we just look at what's happening, excuse me, on the northern border with Hezbollah, where theoretically, the United Nations Interim Force and Lebanon are unifil, are supposed to be ensuring that the land between the border and the Lattani River, it's free of paramilitary activities. And yet we're seeing daily barrages of rockets from Lebanon into Israel. So they've clearly failed completely in that responsibility. And the question is why on earth would Israel trust another UN organized international force? And I think that they don't is the answer to that. So we're looking at what's going to happen next. And we're also looking at how is the Israeli political compass going to be rearchitected by these changes? In other words, is this war going to prove to finally be the undoing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his very long term rule over Israel? Or will is will as he is Mr. Security, supposedly, if Israel prosecutes a successful war against Hamas, will that actually bolster his popularity? Both of these are credible scenarios. Now the research I'm going to be presenting today, I'm just doing this video so that it gets out to more people. It's not my research to be very to state the obvious, I'm not a pollster. But I think it's important research. And that's why I'm making this video. It's conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute. Now just a couple of notes here, firstly, very importantly, because this is such a volatile situation between going on in the Gaza Strip, this polling was conducted between October 24th and 26th. And that is I'm just looking at my calendar over to the size here where actually that's actually about two and a half weeks ago. And as we're, you know, a month and a few days into this war, that would have been just about in the first couple of weeks of the war, right? The war broke out on the 7th of October. So the 24th would basically be spent a little over two weeks. Now, it's realistic to think that this sentiment is going to be in a state of flux as the outcomes of the war change over time, and etc. So it was conducted by the, as I said, the Israel Democracy Institute. And just to give a little bit of information about them up on the screen here. The IDI is an independent centre of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy. I'm just moving something from under my chair here. And the IDI is kind of best known for critiquing. They were quite involved in the commenting on the judicial reform debate, which is very, very much removed over to the side. And as the name suggests, they're a sort of, I think it's fair to say left leaning think tank, think tank, which supports more robust democracy in Israel and with proper checks and balances. And thus was, I believe, came out in opposition to the judicial reform plan. So if I got that wrong, anyone is welcome to correct me. The author, lead author of this research was Professor Tamar Herman. She is the academic director of the Viterbi Family Centre for Public Opinion and Policy Research. And she's a senior fellow at the, at the IDI. Finally, let's get to the research itself, the Israeli voice index. And I'm just going to give a sort of gloss over this document, pointing out the main findings, or at least that I think are interesting, written by a professor, a professor, Tamar Herman and Dr. Oranabi. So this is the October 2023 edition of the Israeli voice index. And it shows that a significant majority of Jewish Israelis trust the heads of the IDF over Prime Minister Netanyahu. If elections were held today, a majority of Israelis 55% would vote for the same block they voted for in the last elections. So again, it was the caveat that this is now two and a half weeks retrospective, this data. Interesting to see that I have seen some figures saying that 70% of Likud voters those who voted for Likud is the party of Benjamin Netanyahu would not vote for him. So the kind of impression given was that Likud was abandoning BB. Nevertheless, it seems that most people, because they important to understand that in the political system we have in Israel, people vote according to a party and the party list has a leader. So this is a little bit different than other systems of democracy, including the one I grew up with in Ireland, in which it's a constituency based system. There is no such thing really as constituencies in Israel. When there is a general national election for a Knesset, you go and you vote for a political party and that party has a list. So it's a different system and my critique of the system would be that it prioritizes national issues. When you don't have a constituency people in Ireland where I grew up often critique constituency based politics because the famous example is a pothole. Some people call it pothole politics. Your local politician fixes a pothole and you vote for him. Stupid things like that. But that's a valid criticism. But at the same time, when you don't have any constituencies, there is a complete vacuum of responsibility. None of the members of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, who are supposedly representing the people, have direct accountability to citizens and I think that's very problematic. So anyway, that is the number one finding. Just to talk about the sample size here, 602 Jewish Israelis and 151 Arab Israelis. So we're looking at a sample size here of 750. Just to remind Israel's population as something like 10 million, they're about. And I think that breakdown between Jewish and Arab Israelis is roughly proportionate to the general representations of each group in Israeli society. So here's some interesting comments. The national moves in line with the findings of the war in Gaza surveys we've conducted since mid October, which indicate a rise in optimism about the future of Israel. Despite the severity of the current situation, this one survey also found an increase in the share of optimists regarding both the future of democratic rule in Israel and the future of Israel security. I just want to say that as a sample size of one talking about my own personal opinion, I very, very much feel this. The war currently going on is scary. It's scary because firstly, there's a lot of Israeli troops in Gaza and we're seeing more people being killed by the day. It's scary because of the growing anti-Semitism we're seeing around the world. There is, of course, legitimate criticism about whether Israel's operation is proportionate and whether the amount of civilian casualties are necessary. But we're also seeing a lot of very frank anti-Semitism and that scares me. As someone who lives in Israel, so I'm not directly affected, but there is a whole world outside of Israel. And some of the scenes we're seeing are frightening for Jewish people, very frightening, especially those of us who are relevant relatives living in the Jewish diaspora. And we're also, another big cause of concern is what happens if Hezbollah opened a front on the northern border with Lebanon. That's something that's very worrying. And a lot of people, I've seen speculation that that front could break open when Hezbollah perceives Israel to be at its most engaged in Gaza. In other words, the most resources piled in there and then in northern front breaks out. None of this is known. This is all speculation, but it is quite scary. But nevertheless, I have a feeling just sort of a very much intrinsic belly hunch that we're going to emerge from this better. We've already seen the divisions in Israeli society that were very, very polarized because of the judicial reform proposals really just evaporate very quickly. Left and right are coming together to support this war effort by Israel. So the optimism was higher among Jews than Arabs at 43 and 26% respectively and roughly the same figures regarding optimism for security. However, interestingly enough that within each of these two big demographic chunks, Jews and Arabs, there are differences of opinion. In the Jewish sample, only a minority of those who define themselves as on the left 23% or in the center are optimizing about the future of democratic rule. So how are these two things existing in parallel? The answer is that Israel is quite a right wing society overall. So although the majority, there is optimism in the society at large, for the left in the center, they're feeling less optimistic about the future of democratic rule in Israel. And likewise, I think this is actually more important. The picture is similar regarding the future of Israel security. 34% of the left, left, left leading voters being optimistic, 40% in the center and on the right, 52%. Which by the way, it's not immensely high, of course. It's a very slim majority, but it is a majority nevertheless. Next finding, excuse me, a large majority of the public at 70% think that the disagreements between supporters and opponents are the government's judicial reforms influenced Hamas's decision to execute its attack plans at this time. That's quite interesting. So, you know, we've seen a lot of sloganeering here in Israel that, you know, that we're coming together and that, you know, it's strong to come together and that any division is weakness. And that motif, if you will, seems to enjoy quite widespread support in Israeli society, with seven out of 10 Israelis believing that Hamas chose to pull the trigger. Now it's kind of clear that these attacks were in the work for quite some time. But the actual, suggesting that the actual date of execution may have been moved forward as such. And again, this is the split between the left, the center, and the right. And as opposed to the previous finding, this one's actually quite consistent, that across three major sort of branches of the Israeli political spectrum, at least 70% and on the right, 81% blaming a lack of unity or attributing a lack of unity to the breakout of the conflict. Also regarding the question of blame for October 7th, clearly there was immense Israeli military failures that went on with Hamas being able to seemingly relatively easily overcome the Israeli security, you know, positions on the Gaza border. Now there's been a big debate in Israel about who should take responsibility. It took Netanyahu a couple of weeks to finally admit some semblance of responsibility. But there has been another feeling, another motif to use that word, that this blame game should not be carried out while the war is being, is going on. So 63% of Israelis believing that any examination of the issues of responsibility for the failure of October 7th should be postponed until after the war. However, very large differences were found on this question between different political camps in the Jewish sample. With only half of those on the left in favor of postponing such an inquiry, and two thirds in the center and more than three quarters in the right. So the left wingers are less in favor of the idea, you know, they're more to reverse that they're more in favor of having this sort of, I'm lapsing back into Irish political terminology by calling it a tribunal of inquiry, because that's what that's what these things are called in Ireland. But in any event, whatever the name is here on the left, they want to kind of have it now and the right, the right wingers are 78% in favor of after the war just running that one up. Who do you trust more to direct the war? We asked several media outlets have reported tensions between Netanyahu and the heads of the IDF regarding the war in Gaza and conducting the Northern Front against Hezbollah. Who do you trust more on these issues? Around half of the respondents in the total sample said that they had more trust than the head of the IDF and a quarter said they don't trust any of them. Around one fifth said they trust Netanyahu and the IDF equally 19% in the Jewish cohort and only a tiny majority reported that they trust Netanyahu more. Okay, so we can see these figures broken down again according to the political block. And interestingly, very interestingly, I would suggest the we're seeing left and center being more, you can see on the right, it's kind of spread, spread even a bit. And on the left and the right is left in the center, excuse me, there is quite, quite strong majority support for having more faith in the IDF than the Prime Minister Netanyahu. Now what that means exactly, I think is unclear, right? Because the way they framed the question, the heads of the IDF, regarding the war in Gaza, conducting the Northern Front, several media outlets have reported tensions between Netanyahu and the heads of the IDF. It's unclear really, you know, who actually has the authority to conduct the war. I would have thought it is the IDF, but perhaps Netanyahu is a veto. So in any event, asking, putting it in more simple terms of who do you think is more responsible, was more capable, we see a large cohort on the left affirming that only a tiny majority of respondents rate the function functioning of government institutions regarding the evacuees and the home front as good or excellent, whereas around half rate their functioning satisfactory on the provision of essential services like electricity, food and water. How would you rate the functioning of government institutions since the beginning of the war and the following issue? So a quarter of a million Israelis have been internally displaced as a result of this war with the Hamas in Gaza. And in terms of satisfaction with the government response, to do the key here, green is poor to very poor. Interestingly, the most negativity is regarding Hasbara or Israel's PR efforts was 50% saying they're very poor. But in terms of the more practical stuff like, you know, keeping education going and electricity supply, the bare bone functioning of society, more, more favor. Rate the functioning of government institutions and the following issues is good or excellent. Total sample by vote of the last elections and coalition and opposition party voters. The respondents are divided next, next subject here, releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the release of the Israeli hostages. The respondents were divided as to whether it would be right or wrong to release large numbers of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in return for the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, something, something like 240 of them with 43% sort of supporting such an exchange and 39% opposing it. So right now, and the rest selected don't know right now, it's about 40, 40 give or take some saying there should be a prisoner release. The question is a prisoner release. If there were to a prisoner release, you can imagine will be on a huge scale when Gilad Shalit was held in Hamas captivity, that was a prisoner release. How what would a prisoner release on 240 times Gilad Shalit? What would the Hamas demands be perhaps emptying out all the prisoners in the Israeli jails entirely? So I would say not surprising that there is kind of opposition here. And we can see with the Israeli Arabs were quite a little bit higher in their, in their support for this idea of a prisoner exchange was 60% supporting it versus only 40% in the Jewish cohorts. And drafting a radium to the IDF, in light of a sizable number of young heredium ultra orthodox Jews having requested to enlist in the IDF since October 7th, we sought to examine public opinion regarding the military drafting of heredity men. Almost half of the Jewish respondents think that heredium should be drafted in the same way as every other segment of the Jewish public. One third are in favor of exemptions. So they can study Torah and only a small minority at 14% think that all the heredity men should be exempted from military service. So that is interesting. And they looked at it by a camp again, dividing Israeli society, Jewish Jewish Israeli society between those who are heredity themselves. And interestingly within that cohort, 74% supporting an exemption a blanket exemption for youngsters. So really the idea that heredium are don't support the continued Torah based exemptions is really a fallacy because in this cohort seven out of 10 of them do, of course that means there are three out of three out of 10 don't but quite a strong support for it. And pretty much inverse when you look at secular 66% say the heredity should be drafted just like anyone else. And the support for the exemption is tiny. I have to hover over it to see it. It's 1.5% of secular is the war in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel. We asked how would you characterize relations between Jews and Arabs citizens of citizens of Israel today very good good so so bad or very bad. An interesting finding and one that requires further investigation was a decline in the share of Jewish respondents who said their relations are bad relative to the previous measurement and a slight rise in the share of those said they're good. And again, this is kind of reflective of really what we're seeing in Israeli society, at least as the media is portraying it that we're seeing, or we have been seeing some quite clear opposition. And we've seen, of course, Israeli Arabs dying tragically in this conflict both those in the army and those not in the army because the Hamas terrorists on October 7th and when they're firing missiles did not distinguish between religion whatsoever. So this is I would say a heartening finding. We can see on the 10th Jews very good 11% rising on eight so so now it's important to really state that across both the Jewish and Arab demographics, the most common opinion is so so and the good slash very good interestingly is actually higher among the Arab demographic and this is going all the way back to 2017. So although there has been a rise in sort of the optimism, there's actually been a decline in the Arab sector from those who rate the relations is good to very good from 33 to 21%. On the flip side, the Jews have been increased but overall across both Jews and Jews and Arabs, the most dominant opinion is our relations are so so voting intentions in future elections despite the extensive criticism as the government voice since the outbreak of the war particularly the prime minister. Only a tiny minority 6% of the total sample said that if elections were held in the foreseeable future they would vote for a party in the opposing block from the one they voted for at the last elections. So it doesn't seem like yes, this election is going to turn the tables on the Israeli political spectrum. Just want to bring up the source data as well here. I'm just going to make myself a little bit smaller and then I'll stop because this is a lot of data already. How do you feel about the state of democratic governance in Israel in the foreseeable future? We can see very optimistic Jews and Arabs averaging out to 11%. How do you feel about Israel's security situation in the foreseeable future? Good deal of moderate optimism more so on the side of the of the Jews and other surveys finding us to the state of education and everything else we saw. I'll put a link in the description to this particular lengthy page from the IDI. Again it was a bit retrospective but I hope this has been interesting for those who are curious to see what kind of trends are emerging in Israeli civil society as a result of this conflict. Thanks for watching today's video and if you want to get more videos from me do consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.