A majority of Israelis support completing the hostage deal and approve of Trump’s proposal to transfer the Gaza population to other countries.
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Findings
- Two-thirds of Israelis are in favor of delaying “a decision about what will happen with Hamas rule in Gaza” until after the hostage deal has been completed.
- Most Jewish Israelis believe that the plan to transfer residents of Gaza to another country should be “advanced.”
- Most Arab Israelis (compared to a tiny percentage of Jewish Israelis) believe that the proposal is immoral.
- Most Jewish Israelis are not yet sure that Israel has won or will win the war.
- Half of Israelis feel that Justice Amit’s appointment as Supreme Court president is problematic.
- A large majority of Israelis are “very/somewhat concerned” about the condition of Israeli society.
- Most Jewish Israelis think that many or most Arab Israelis are “political extremists.”
- Only a fifth of Arab Israelis think that many or most Jews are “political extremists.”
- There has been a significant spike of “anger” toward the ultra-Orthodox, especially among Dati’im (non-Haredi religious Jews).
- There has been a rise in positive feelings among Jewish Israelis toward “settlers,” with an emphasis on “appreciation.”
The Hostage Deal
Last month, a deal was signed to release the remaining hostages and for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. The deal was accepted under pressure from President Trump and mediated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, after many months of negotiation. This month, with the succeeding phases of hostage release, we examined the views of Israelis on the deal’s continuation. It is important to note that the survey data was collected at the start of February, before the meeting between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Washington; in this dynamic reality, where events unfold at a rapid pace, responses are likely to also change quickly.
JPPI’s February Israeli Society Index indicates that most of the Israeli public, Jews and Arabs, supports completing the hostage deal in full, and delaying the decision about the fate of Hamas rule in Gaza until afterward. A fifth of the public, and a quarter of Jewish Israelis, would prefer to halt the hostage deal after Phase 1, so that the fighting in Gaza could resume with the aim of toppling the Hamas regime. Among Arab Israelis, three in four support completion of the deal, and only a small minority support resuming the fighting. Last month’s JPPI Israeli Society Index (January 2025) showed a similar finding, with 55% of the public supporting the statement “We can agree to Hamas’s demands and return the hostages, because it will always be possible to find a way to resume fighting.”
In a breakdown by ideological camp, there is a majority across cohorts in support of the statement “Full execution of the hostage deal, and then the decision about the future of Hamas rule in Gaza,” except for the self-identified “right-wing” cohort, in which nearly half (48%) support resuming the war at the end of Phase 1 of the deal, and a third (32%) support continuing with the deal. When the results are broken down by voting pattern and support for the various political parties, we see that supporters of two parties – National Religious Party–Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit – clearly favor resuming the war after the first phase of the deal. Seventy percent of National Religious Party–Religious Zionism adherents and 60% of Otzma Yehudit supporters (those who say they would currently vote for these parties) support resuming the war. In terms of religiosity level, however, a majority of religious Jews (not all of whom, of course, vote for the aforementioned parties) prefer completing the deal (45%, versus 38% who prefer halting the deal at the end of Phase 1).
Among Likud voters, a small majority support continuing with the deal (43% versus 40%). Supporters of the opposition parties show a clear and overwhelming preference for continuing with the deal – 89% of Yesh Atid voters, 79% of Yisrael Beiteinu supporters, and 99% of The Democrats backers.
The Trump Plan
US President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of relocating Arab residents of the Gaza Strip to another country. Approximately seven in ten Israelis support this idea. The survey also shows that a majority of Jewish Israelis view this as “a practical plan that should be advanced,” even before the February 4 Trump-Netanyahu meeting in Washington. Most Arab Israelis oppose Trump’s proposal.
Forty-three percent of all Israelis think the Trump plan is “practical” and should be advanced. A small majority of Jewish Israelis (52%) hold this view; another 30% think the plan “is impractical – but wish that it were.” That is, they support it but do not think it has a real chance of being implemented. Overall, over eight in ten Jewish Israelis support the plan in theory or practice.
In total, 14% of all Israelis (13% of Jews) believe that the plan is a “distraction,” a response that does not indicate explicit opposition to the proposal but does reflect reluctance to engage with it. The share of Israelis who believe that President Trump’s plan is “immoral” because it involves an “unacceptable transfer” is 13%, nearly all of them Arab Israelis (54% gave this response). Among Jewish Israelis, 3% think the proposal is “immoral.”
In a breakdown by ideological orientation, a clear majority of right-wing and center-right respondents embrace the plan and think it is practical (81% among the right, 57% among the center-right). In the centrist and center-left camps, a majority back the plan, but only a minority believe it is practical (31% of centrists). Only in the “left-wing” cohort, a relatively small group (7% of all Jewish Israelis), is there a majority who express reservations about engaging with the plan or about its morality, although moral reservations do not dominate this cohort either (27% among the left-wing cohort , and a total of 3% of the entire Jewish Israeli population). In terms of support for the plan by political-party affiliation, most Likud voters think the plan is desirable and practical (71%), most National Unity voters think it is desirable but not practical (51%), and a majority of Labor voters think it is a “distraction” or “immoral” (62%).
Overall, a proposal involving the transfer of a significant number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip – a move many Israelis once considered illegitimate – now has broad support among Jewish Israelis, and to the extent that it is disfavored, the reason is usually practicability (“a distraction”), not principle. Surveys from the 1990s and the first decade of this century that examined views about a transfer of the Arabs in the territories generally found Jewish support in the 40 to 50% range.
As noted, survey data was collected just prior to the Netanyahu-Trump meeting, and points to a slight drop in the percentage of Israelis who say they are “very confident” the president will “do the right thing” with regard to US-Israel relations – although this finding is surely more likely than other survey findings to be subject to change in the wake of the meeting. While last month a third (32%) of Israelis attested to great confidence in Trump, this month a fifth (20%) did so. However, this month as well most Israelis said they are confident in Trump (very confident + somewhat confident).
Confidence in the Country’s Leadership and in Victory
This month we reworded our question on confidence of an Israeli victory in the war, and that change is reflected in the survey results. Until now, we posed a future- oriented question about the war – how confident respondents are that Israel “will win.” This month, given the ceasefire, which currently appears to be a major pause in the war, we queried confidence levels in the present tense – “To what extent do you believe that Israel is winning and/or has won the war?”
The disparity is clear: last month two in five Jewish Israelis said they were “totally confident” that Israel would win, but this month less than 10% said that Israel is “winning or has won.” There has also been a rise in the share of respondents who are “not at all confident” that Israel “is winning or has won” the war. There is lack of consensus across cohorts that Israel is winning or has won the war. In a breakdown of voters in the 2022 elections, the two parties with the highest respondent share certain that Israel is winning or has won the war are Shas (20%) and Likud (17%).
Among all Israelis, half (50%) say that their confidence in the government is “very low,” versus 8% who say it is “very high.” Most Jewish Israelis say their confidence in the government is low (very low + somewhat low), while a third say that it is high (very high + somewhat high). There was no significant change this month in levels of confidence in the government. This month, a fifth (17%) of Arab Israelis say that their confidence level is high (very high + somewhat high), while three in four (78%) say their confidence in the government is low (very low + somewhat low).
Twenty-nine percent of Likud voters, 48% of National Religious Party–Religious Zionism voters, and 32% of United Torah Judaism voters say that their confidence in the government is low (very low + somewhat low).
Some two-thirds of Israelis report that their level of confidence in Prime Minister Netanyahu, is low (very low + somewhat low), while a third say their confidence in the prime minister is high (very high + somewhat high). This breakdown has remained stable throughout the past year. A large majority of secular Israelis (78%) and most religious (Dati) Israelis (54%) say that their degree of confidence in
Netanyahu is low (very low + somewhat low). A fifth (22%) of those who voted Likud in the 2022 elections say this as well.
Attitudes on Social Situation
This month, we looked at various aspects of cohesion in Israeli society. Most Israeli citizens are concerned (very concerned + somewhat concerned) about the state of social conditions in Israel. There has been little change over the last year. More than a third of Israeli citizens are “very concerned” about the social situation (38%); the share among Arabs is higher (45%). This concern about the social situation is shared by all sectors of the Jewish public. It is higher among the secular (91% are very or quite concerned) but is also shared by a majority of the religious (Dati’im) (71%), religious traditionalists (Masortim) (73%), non-religious traditionalists (79%), and the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) (61%).
Perceptions of Political Extremism
Among Jewish Israelis, 29% believe that most Arab Israelis are politically extremist, 28% say that many Arab Israelis are politically extremist, 34% think some Arab Israelis are politically extremist, and 7% say that few Arab Israelis are politically extremist. In the past year there has been a slight uptick in the percentage of Jewish respondents who feel that many or most Arab Israelis are politically extremist. This month, we also looked at Arab-sector responses to the same question – 36% of Arab Israelis believe that very few Arabs in Israel are politically extremist, 31% say that some are extremist, 16% think many are extremist, and 7% feel that most are extremist.
The general perception of Jewish Israelis is that the level of political extremism within their own ranks is significantly lower than their Arab-Israeli counterparts. Half of Jews (51%) believe that some Jewish Israelis are extremist, a quarter (26%) say that few Jews are extremist, and a fifth (19%) think that many Jews are extremist. There were no major changes in Jewish responses to this question compared to last year.
Arab-Israeli perceptions of Jewish-Israeli political extremism differ widely from those of the Jews themselves. A quarter (28%) of Arab Israelis believe that most Jewish Israelis are extremist, a third (35%) say that many are extremist, a fifth (18%) think that some Jews are extremist, while a tenth (9%) think that few Jewish Israelis are politically extremist. Arab-Israeli responses are similar to a year ago, but about 10% have changed their response from “most of them” to “many of them” – a slight trend toward moderation (although one can see that in the three surveys noted here, the degree of fluctuation between response options is quite high).
Perceptions of Different Social Groups
This month’s survey also looked at how the social situation affects attitudes toward different sectors of society. The survey questionnaire allowed participants to choose their “main feelings” regarding different groups, and gave respondents eight options: closeness, partnership, appreciation, indifference, fear, anger, hatred, or “none of the above.” The two groups that elicited the highest share of positive sentiment were IDF soldiers and the Druze (84%).
Results for the population as a whole indicate a dominant feeling of “closeness” when the question pertains to IDF soldiers (47% of the total population, 56% of Jews). The feeling of “partnership” predominates among Jews with regard to the Druze (51%). “Anger” predominates among non-ultra-Orthodox Jews with regard to the ultra-Orthodox (42%). Most Arab responses with regard to most sectors were “indifference” or “none of the above.”
As can be seen from the overall ranking of sentiments (broken down into negative and positive), the major change compared to last year is how the ultra-Orthodox are regarded – feelings about whom became significantly more negative, possibly a result of the conscription controversy. We see a rise in positive attitudes toward the “National Religious” (Dati Leumi) and toward “settlers.”
There has also been an increase in positive regard toward “high-tech entrepreneurs,” mainly due to a significant jump in the sentiment of “appreciation” – from 36% last year to 45% this year. There has been a decline in positive sentiment toward the “Bedouin,” stemming from a drop in “appreciation” and a rise in “fear.”
Arab sentiment rankings differ substantially from Jewish rankings; therefore, we have displayed them separately.
Many Arab Israelis have an attitude of “indifference” toward a large proportion of Israel’s social sectors. When we look at the rankings for those sectors toward which Arab feelings are positive, we find that most are, above all, minority sectors (Muslims, Bedouin, Druze), or Jewish sectors identified with centrist and left-wing views (leftists, kibbutzniks, high-tech entrepreneurs, “Tel Avivim”).
Settlers elicited a higher level of positive sentiment among Jews over last year, but the greatest degree of negativity among Arabs. When breaking down this heightened positivity by specific sentiments, we find that most of the change stems from increased “appreciation” among the secular. Half of secular respondents still regard settlers negatively (49%), especially with “anger.” However, compared to
last year the share of the secular who regard settlers with “anger” dropped from 42 to 35%, with an 8% overall decline in negativ feelings. The area in which the shift toward positive sentiment is evident is secular “appreciation” for settlers. In last year’s survey, one in ten secular respondents expressed “appreciation” for settlers; this year the share is 17%. This change may stem from the prominence of settlers in IDF combat units, and among the war’s wounded and fallen.
This year, in the survey’s breakdown of sentiment toward different sectors, we again looked at how the religious (Dati’im) feel about the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim), versus how Haredim feel about the Dati’im. In this comparison we see that the Haredim have almost no negative feelings about Dati’im, but a sizeable subset of Dati’im (43%) cite “anger” toward the Haredim as their dominant sentiment. While a third (30%) of Haredim say their main feeling toward Dati’im is appreciation, less than a tenth (8%) of Dati’im say the same about the Haredim.
Over the past year we saw a rise in the overall percentage of Jewish Israelis who regard the Dati’im with “appreciation”, and a decline in the share who mainly regard the Dati’im with “anger.” At the same time, there has been a drop in the share of Jews who mainly regard the Haredim with “closeness,” and a significant rise in the share who primarily regard the Haredim with “anger” (among all Jews, 42%). Among the Dati’im, the share of those who regard the Haredim with “anger” has nearly doubled, from 22% last year to 43% this year.
Another comparative assessment we repeated this year concerns the way in which “Tel Avivim” are perceived by other groups. Tel Avivim have a certain image that impacts how they are regarded by Israel’s two non-religious sectors – the secular and the non-religious Masortim. These two groups comprise Israelis whose everyday lifestyle is not religious, but major sociological differences exist between them. The secular tend to be more highly educated with higher incomes, are more Ashkenazi than Mizrahi, live more in the center than the periphery, and the like. Accordingly, attitudes of the two groups toward Tel Avivim differ. For the most part, the secular have positive feelings, such as a sense of closeness or partnership.
A third of non-religious Masortim have positive sentiments toward Tel Avivim, but a similar share express indifference, while another sizeable share, amounting to a fifth of non-religious Masortim, express negative feelings.
The Judiciary
After many months of delay, Justice Isaac Amit was appointed president of Israel’s Supreme Court. Thirty- five percent of all Israelis think this appointment was long overdue, while half consider it problematic. A fifth of Israelis believe the appointment should have been prevented, even at the cost of a constitutional crisis, another fifth think it would have been better off not happening, and a tenth see the appointment as “problematic but it is good that it’s behind us.”
Political orientation strongly correlates with Israelis’ attitudes toward Justice Amit’s appointment. Those on the right (including center-right) tend to say it would have been better had the appointment not happened (including some who would not have been deterred by the prospect of a constitutional crisis), while those in the center and left there tended to say the appointment “was long overdue.” Overall, a quarter of Jewish Israelis think the minister of justice should have blocked the appointment, even at the cost of a constitutional crisis. Nearly half (46%) of Arab Israelis were unable to respond to this question, but among those who did – the majority feel that Amit’s appointment was long overdue. Most Haredim, as well as 44% of National Religious Party–Religious Zionism voters and 39% of Likud voters, feel that the justice minister should have prevented the appointment, even at the cost of a constitutional crisis.
The Jewish People Policy Institute’s February Israeli Society Index survey was administered between January 30 and February 3, 2025 to 849 respondents. Data was collected by theMadad. com (649 Jewish-sector respondents via an online poll) and by Afkar Research (200 Arab-sector respondents, half online and half by telephone). Data was analyzed and weighted by voting pattern and religiosity level to represent Israel’s adult population. Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov compile the JPPI Israeli Society Index; Professor David Steinberg serves as statistical consultant.