1/4 of Israeli Jews hope to leave the country

Trust in the IDF and Israel’s political leadership has fallen significantly, according to new report.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A leading policy planning think tank published a survey Wednesday which showed that a quarter of Jewish Israelis would leave the country if they could.

The Jewish People Policy Institute’s July Israeli Society Index noted that the number was even higher among Arab Israelis, with fully 40% saying that they would emigrate if it was a possibility for them.

There has been a steady decline in public trust in its most important institutions as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on in the Gaza Strip.

Whereas in the first months of the conflict, the public expressed a high level of trust in the abilities of the IDF to defeat Hamas, by June only a majority of right-wing Jewish Israelis (62%) thought Israel could achieve victory. Centrists and left-wing respondents’ confidence was much lower, at 30% and 16% respectively.

Trust in the senior echelon of the IDF would seemingly play a large role in the respondents’ assessment.

In this month’s survey, when asked if they believe in the senior command, 55% of Jewish survey participants said their trust level was either “low” or “very low.”

There was a sharp drop of confidence among those on the political right, with a whopping 80% joining the negative side when in June that number was 60%.

These numbers are astonishingly low in a country where there has traditionally been bedrock faith in the military.

Still, it was not followed by a terribly sharp drop in the willingness to take on Hezbollah, which has been raining thousands of rockets, missiles and UAVs on the north, angering the area’s residents whose lives have come to a standstill as a result, with 60,000 evacuated and the rest in constant danger.

While in March 62% favored attacking Hezbollah, the number currently stands at 56%, which still reflects a recognition on a majority of the public’s part that the military must provide a solution to the shut-down of an entire region of the country.

Meanwhile, although there was a slight rise in trust in the government over the last month, this was not particularly good news as the numbers are very low.

In June’s survey only 25% of Jewish citizens (and 18% of Arab Israelis) said they felt a fairly or high trust in the government, and this rose just one digit, to 26% overall, who now said the same.

A mere 27% overall said they trust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This accords with a Channel 12 poll on Friday that found that 72% of Israelis think he should resign as a result of the failure to prevent the Hamas-led invasion and massacre of October 7.

Fully 44% said he should quit immediately, with another 28% saying he should resign after the war is over.

Perhaps even more worrying for the prime minister, half of those who said they supported the current government said he should leave office early.

emigrationjewish people policy instituteMigration