Project Head: Shmuel Rosner
Participants: Ghila Amati | Nadia Beider | Ariel Bendor | Eliran Carsenti | Shimrit Cohen-Barbi | Janan Danial | Dana Fahn-Luzon | Shlomo Fischer | Shuki Friedman | Avi Gil | Yehonatan Givati | Noa Israeli | Eli Kannai | Dov Maimon | Robert Neufeld | Tamir Pardo | Rivka Ravitz | Daniela Regev | Yael Ribner | Lipaz Rotkovsy | John Ruskay | Jonathan Saidel | Roy Schondorf | Amit Shoval | Noah Slepkov | Yedidia Stern | Shalom Salomon Wald | Haim Zicherman | Eldar Zilber
(This chapter is based on JPPI’s annual Cohesion and Pluralism index, which for the past nine years has been based on a comprehensive public opinion survey. As in earlier years, this year’s survey included Jewish and non-Jewish respondents. In the Jewish sector the survey was conducted by THEMADAD.COM and included a relatively large respondent sample (1,700); of these, nearly 600 respondents completed the questionnaire both this year and last year, facilitating reliable and individual comparison of changing views among the same respondents from different groups. This year another survey was conducted in July, which included 600 of the respondents who had completed the January-February survey, also making it possible to perform an individualized comparison of changes in views during the first half of 2023. This year’s survey (like those of previous years) was supervised by Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University.)
The surveys mentioned in this chapter were conducted under particular political and social conditions and against the background of developments that any analysis of their findings must take into account. In the first half of 2023, the bitter sociopolitical controversy over the government’s efforts to reform the judicial system was the main development impacting the data (for more on this controversy, see page 59). After its victory in last November’s elections, a new governing coalition set out to implement a set of reforms to Israel’s political system, which resulted in a major national crisis and prompted President Isaac Herzog to warn, in an impassioned mid-February speech, that the country was “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse,” and “moments away before a violent clash.”
The obvious dominance judicial reform controversy in Israeli discourse should not obscure the effects of other developments represented in the data presented here. The elections were won by the right-wing bloc, the left-wing bloc shrank (with one veteran party, Meretz, dropping below the electoral threshold), and the Arab parties returned to their all-but-permanent place in the opposition (after Ra’am spent a brief term in the previous coalition). After the inauguration of a government based on votes for Likud, the Religious Zionist party and the two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, tensions also erupted on “religion and state” issues (such as the enactment of the “Chametz Law” prohibiting the entry of leavened foods into hospitals during Passover).
One significant issue that makes it hard for Israel to extricate itself from the present crisis is the lack of a basic consensus between the camps on what exactly sparked the confrontation. According to a JPPI survey conducted in July, coalition voters (in particular those who voted “right,” but also those who voted “center-right”) feel that the anti-government protests, though ostensibly meant to express disapproval of the judicial reform, are in reality an attempt by the opposition to topple a legally elected government by fomenting chaos.
Half of all Israeli Jews (49%) and a large majority (70%) of those who support the right – Israel’s largest political subgroup – feel that the goal of the protests is “to prompt new elections and replace the government.” By contrast, those who support the groups to which anti-government protesters belong (mainly center-left and left) think the goal is to protest a specific policy, and not an attempt to undermine the results of an election just a short time after it took place. This dispute is just one of many examples of the distrust that divides Israelis and affects how one “reads” reality and intensifies reactions to it.
Another reading-of-reality gap found by the JPPI survey relates to whether and to what extent the Israeli public is interested in “democracy,” and which “democracy” it wants. Judicial reform proponents in the government and the general public feel that a recalibration of the balance of power between the legislature and the judiciary would strengthen Israeli democracy, by giving more authoritative weight to the views of the public. Opponents of the reform, those who chant “Democracy!” at the demonstrations, feel that the change proposed by the government would weaken democracy by opening the door to a tyranny of the majority, and to corruption. Such rhetoric might lead one to expect a significant gap in the desire of citizens to uphold a democratic system and in their understanding of the nature of such a system. However, at least where fundamental principles are concerned, it is hard to find such a disparity.
Israeli citizens are sometimes tested on the basis of one of the two following questions: Do they support Israel as a Jewish-democratic state (or as a Jewish and democratic state)?; and Do they consider one a higher priority than the other? Without entering into a theoretical discussion on the meaning of “Jewish and democratic” – a combination whose nature remains unclear – we decided this year to ask the Israeli public a question that embodies no tacit assumptions about competition between the two components. Rather, our questionnaire offered the opportunity to express a completely separate opinion regarding each one. We asked, separately, about the level of support for Israel as a Jewish state, and about the level of support for Israel as a democratic state. The results are altogether clear: a large majority of Jews want Israel to be Jewish, and a very large majority want it to be democratic. A framework encompassing both components is undesirable only to the Arab minority, which expresses very broad support for Israel as a democratic state, but significant reservations about Israel as a Jewish state.
What is a democratic state? On this as well there is no deep fundamental disagreement. Among all population groups, Jewish and Arab, there is a majority who think that the state’s democratic component refers to two subcomponents: “free elections and voting rights” and “tolerance and the safeguarding of human rights.” However, a third of Israeli Jews who define themselves as “Datiim” (non-Haredi religious) or as “Haredim” (ultra-Orthodox) chose only one of the two components – “elections and voting rights” – as characteristic of a democratic state, as do 39% of right-wing voters (this is, of course, the same population, identified via a different scale of definitions). Here it should be clarified that the question posed only two possible definitions of what a democratic state is (as well as third option, chosen by a majority: both components together).
One may assume that a question that included other options would have made it possible to identify additional interpretive disputes about the term’s applicability to the State of Israel; in particular had we included options central to the public controversies swirling at the time the survey was conducted, such as the independence of the judiciary, governmental transparency, or separation of powers.
Contrary to what is often claimed, it is actually the Jewish-state component, not the democratic-state component, that is subject to the greater degree of challenge. Israeli Arabs support democracy, but many of them oppose Israel as a Jewish state, and among Jews the rate of support for Israel as a democratic state is significantly higher than the rate of support for Israel as a Jewish state. While 88% of Jews say it is very important to them that Israel be democratic, the share of Jews who say this about Israel as a Jewish state is 66%. This is a substantial disparity. In other words, although support for the democratic component is unequal, the gaps between the groups are not very large. Regarding the Jewish component, by contrast, we find great disparities: among the secular, the share of those to whom the Jewish component is very important collapses to a much lower share than among the other segments of the Jewish population.
Of course, we must be precise here: even the secular express overwhelming support for Israel as a Jewish state, but half of this group say the state’s Jewishness is “somewhat,” rather than “very,” important to them (45%, very important; 42%, somewhat important). A number of conjectures can be made about why this is so, not excluding the constellation of political circumstances at the time of the survey – a time of bitter conflict between the more traditional groups (which support the coalition) and those of more secular tendencies. A partial or full identification of the state’s Jewishness with the government’s agenda may be driving the eroding support of secular Jews for the state’s Jewish component. Here we should note that a high percentage of the secular feel that there is “religious coercion” in Israel (58% rated the religious coercion level at 8-10 on a scale of 1-10); religious coercion is also identified with pressure from groups that emphasize the state’s Jewishness.
The fundamental points of agreement are significant, but something makes it difficult to reach consensus on policy issues – a factor that emerges when we look at the image of different social subgroups through eyes of other groups. Simply put: Does the right (in the Jewish sector) understand that the left also wants a Jewish Israel? And conversely: Does the left realize that the right also wants a democratic Israel?
Our examination of the subgroup images was performed as follows: center and left respondents (who oppose the government) were asked: “It is sometimes claimed that, for supporters of the right in Israel, it is less important that Israel be a democratic state. To what extent do you agree with this claim?” Right-wing respondents (who support the government) were asked: “It is sometimes claimed that, for center and left supporters in Israel, it is less important that Israel be a Jewish state. To what extent do you agree with this claim?” The findings indicate the extent to which, on both ends of the political spectrum, the true wishes of the rival camp are misjudged. Among right-wing respondents, nearly 80% agreed (strongly or somewhat) that it is less important for center and left proponents that Israel be a Jewish state.
And, likewise, nearly 80% of left-wing respondents agreed (strongly or somewhat) that it is less important to the right that Israel be a democratic state. As noted, there is truth to the claim that right-wing support for a “democratic Israel” is slightly lower than left-wing support, and there is truth to the claim that support among the left for a “Jewish Israel” is lower than it is among the right. However, in light of the very high levels of support for both components within Jewish society as a whole, it appears that the image each side has of the other is far from accurate.
We assessed the attitudes of Israelis from different camps toward each other with another question, one pertaining to the feelings that government supporters and opponents have toward one another. The assessment was conducted twice. The first time was in January 2023, when the conflict over the judicial system was already present in the public arena. At the time of the survey, the largest subgroup of opposition supporters chose the phrase “disappointed in them” to describe their feelings about coalition voters (45%), while among coalition voters the phrase “respect them” was frequently chosen (41%).
In July, six months later, we posed the same question again. The disparity is evident on both sides, but mainly in the coalition-supporters’ view of opposition supporters. That is, both camps exhibited a shift from positive statements such as “love them” or “respect them” to less-positive statements such as “disappointed in them” or “angry with them.” But the most dramatic change was documented regarding the attitude of government proponents toward government opponents. It may be supposed that the opposition supporters
had formulated their view about the rival political camp in January, not long after the sociopolitical crisis over the judicial reform erupted. By contrast, the coalition supporters, who in January had not yet developed a strong emotional response, underwent a “hardening” with regard to the other camp, perhaps the cumulative result of protest measures, which included road blockings, harsh rhetoric, threats of “civil disobedience,” and the like.
Each year, JPPI monitors an array of indicators pertaining to inter-group relations in Israel. Several of these indicators recur each year, or every few years, making longitudinal comparison possible.
This year, after a five-year hiatus, we twice repeated (in January and July) a question about the level of religious or secular coercion in Israel, as perceived by Jews of different sectors. It must be emphasized again that the question was posed this year against the background of Israel’s current sociopolitical tensions, and the fact that differences in religiosity levels between the political camps are more discernable now than in the past. Many of the constituent subgroups in Israel’s present governing coalition are religious and Haredi; by contrast, a substantial majority of opposition supporters are secular or traditionalist-not-religious. However, impressions and feelings with regard to religious or secular coercion in Israel are nothing new. In 2018, a very strong sense of religious coercion was detected, which intensified with level of secularity; a certain (less-strong) sense of secular coercion was found as well, which intensified as one moved toward the more religious end of the spectrum.
We found no major change this year with regard to religious coercion. The percentage of secular respondents who feel that there is religious coercion in Israel is very high; on a scale of 1 (no coercion at all) to 10 (very high level of coercion), the average rating given by secular respondents was over 7. However, a certain increase over what we saw five years ago was found for the mirror image – the claim by the Haredi and Dati public that secular coercion exists. As in the questionnaire of half a decade ago, this year as well the secular-coercion picture corresponds to, and is the opposite of, the religious-coercion picture. However, this year the sense of secular coercion expressed by the Dati-Haredi camp was nearly as intense as the secular camp’s sense of religious coercion. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Haredim rated the degree of secular coercion at over 7 (out of 10), as did more than half of the Dati respondents.
What these findings mean is that here as well, with regard to the sense of coercion felt by both camps, Israel is in a state of polarization with opposing “readings” of reality. The feelings detected at both ends of the spectrum are of coercion “against us,” with little acknowledgment of the claim that “we ourselves” coerce others. As in the previous examples, regardless of who is factually right (a question that is not easy to answer), it is clear that a dispute over the facts is raging in Israel, and that makes it very difficult to reach satisfactory civil arrangements. When each side assumes that it is suffering from coercion while not, in turn, subjecting the other side to coercion, little willingness for compromise on religion-and-state arrangements can be expected.
Another data comparison vis-à-vis last year was performed with regard to the sense of partnership between Jews and Arabs in Israel. This assessment appeared necessary due to a significant change in circumstances: last year, Israel had a governing coalition that included an Arab party, but this year the coalition includes several factions that explicitly reject partnership with Arab parties. Despite these changes, no very large gaps were found in terms of attitudes among Jews or Arabs toward a common future for both populations – there was a small increase in Jewish recognition of a common future, and a slight decrease in Arab recognition.
The respondent group that showed the greatest change was Jewish supporters of the political center, which showed a rise in “strongly agree” responses to the idea that all Israelis have a common future – from 33% to 47%. However, this increase is not unique to centrist voters; rather, it was detected among all groups (per a political breakdown) at various levels. Of methodological interest here is that these differences were evident when we compared this year’s survey data with last year’s, and when we performed individual comparisons of those who participated in both surveys (nearly 600 respondents). That is, the Israelis who answered the questionnaire in 2022 and again in 2023 changed their minds. The sole exception in this regard were the Haredi respondents – their responses this year overlap almost completely with their responses last year.
The findings presented here, which were collected during a particularly stormy period in Israel, require cautious examination and further monitoring – among other things so that, in the coming years, we can determine whether the processes currently underway in Israel are reinforcing or eroding values held by the various segments of Israeli society. Of great importance is the fact that, as yet, there has been no detected erosion of the basic desire for a truly democratic system. However, the major gaps in trust and in readings of reality are making it difficult to return Israeli society to a path of calm dialogue and the aspiration for broad consensus.
