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- There has been a decline in the share of Israelis who think launching the Iran war (Operation Roaring Lion) was justified, but a majority still think it was.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- A similar decline was found in the share of Israelis who expect a positive long-term outcome of the Iran war.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- A majority of the public believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s depictions of the war’s results are inaccurate.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Trust in the IDF senior command has eroded after peaking during Operation Roaring Lion.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Trust that President Trump will act appropriately in the context of U.S.-Israel relations has continued to decline.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Israelis are divided over why American support for Israel is eroding.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Most of the Israeli public supports establishing a commission of inquiry into the war as soon as possible. Still, it is split over the preferred type: a state commission of inquiry or a commission based on “broad consensus.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
- An overwhelming majority of Israelis denounce vandalizing religious symbols: Nine in ten think the soldier who smashed the crucifix in Lebanon was wrong.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Defeat in the upcoming elections would be seen as regrettable by right-wing Israelis and “intolerable” by their left-wing counterparts.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- Most of the public supports civil marriage, but many oppose intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews.<\/strong><\/li>\n
- What most endangers the future of humanity? Nuclear weapons rank first, followed by social media, global warming, and artificial intelligence.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Click here to download the PDF version.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
The Iran War<\/strong><\/p>\n
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After a month and a half of fighting, a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire took effect on April 8. The calm was extended several times during April and in early May and has held despite tensions on the ground. As of this writing, efforts are underway to negotiate an end to the crisis, while Israel maintains military readiness out of concern that the confrontation may resume.<\/p>\n
Six in ten Israelis (59%) believe that the decision to launch Operation Roaring Lion was the right one, while 22% believe it was wrong and 19% say it is too early to determine. This is a sharp decline from the 72% who supported the decision to strike in March at the start of the campaign. Among Jewish Israelis, broad support (70%) remains, with only 10% opposing the move. Still, this represents a significant decline relative to the 85% majority who supported the decision to strike at the war’s onset (March 2026 survey).<\/p>\n
There is a direct correlation between respondents’ position along the ideological spectrum and the degree to which they think the operation was justified. On the right, there is almost complete support for the move (96%), and substantial (73%) support among the center-right. As one moves leftward along the spectrum, support declines and ambivalence rises: in the centrist and center-left cohorts, more than one-third (36% and 37%, respectively) say it is too early to tell whether the decision was correct. Among the left-wing cohort, 50% think it was the wrong decision. In other words, the right views the attack as a necessary step, while the center and the left exhibit uncertainty and even opposition to the move.<\/p>\n
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As in the previous two months (March and April), the May Israeli Society Index survey again examined whether Israelis think the war with Iran will or will not change the situation in the Middle East over the long term. This month, there was some stabilization in the level of optimism on this question. After the sharp decline recorded between March (65% optimistic) and April (53%), the share of those who believe the situation will change for the better in the long term still stands at about half (52%). At the same time, the share of Israelis who are unsure about the campaign’s outcomes remains high (26% of respondents).<\/p>\n
Broken down by ideological orientation, the right-wing cohort exhibits almost complete belief in positive long-term change (92%), with half of respondents (52%) saying they are “certain” of it. The opposite picture appears on the left, where virtually no respondents expect positive change and half (50%) expect the situation to worsen over the long term. Both the center and center-left cohorts include a high share of respondents who are unsure whether the war will have a positive or negative long-term effect (44% and 53%, respectively). This indicates that respondents outside the right and center-right cohorts still find it difficult to view the war’s achievements as a regional paradigm shift.<\/p>\n
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An examination of the level of credibility the public attributes to the prime minister’s reports on the outcomes of the “Rising Lion” (June 2025) and “Roaring Lion” (2026) campaigns reveals a crisis of trust. Six in ten Israelis (60%) believe Netanyahu’s descriptions of the campaigns’ achievements are inaccurate (20% “not very accurate” and 40% “very inaccurate”), compared with just over a third (38%) who believe he describes the reality correctly. More than half (56%) of Jewish Israelis question the accuracy of his depictions, and a large majority (76%) of Arab Israelis say that Netanyahu’s depictions are inaccurate.<\/p>\n
Whereas in the right-wing cohort, a majority (77%) believes Netanyahu’s descriptions are accurate, the opposite perception holds among the center-right, where slightly more than half (53%) believe his reports are inaccurate. As one moves further leftward on the ideological spectrum, trust in the prime minister’s words almost entirely evaporates: in the center, 89% of respondents do not believe his depictions of the outcomes have been accurate, and in the center-left and left-wing cohorts, the figure reaches 96% and 100%, respectively. Perceptions of the security reality and assessments of the military’s achievements are mediated through the political prism, with declarations about the campaigns’ success by the political echelon received with deep skepticism by more than half of the Israeli public.<\/p>\n
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Trust in Leadership and in Victory<\/strong><\/p>\n
Recent months have seen a sharp and continuing decline in the Israeli public’s general sense of victory in the war across all fronts. At the height of “Operation Roaring Lion” in March, a majority of Israelis (56%) reported a strong sense of victory (ratings of 4 and 5), but this figure has eroded this month to 38%. Among Jewish Israelis, the decline was even more dramatic: from a peak of 62% in March to 42% in May. At the same time, there has been a significant rise in the share of Israelis who report that they do not feel Israel is winning at all, a figure that tripled within two months \u2013 from 7% in March to 22% in May. Among the Arab public, pessimism is even deeper: half of respondents (52%) believe Israel is not winning the war (1 or 2), and only a fifth (20%) feel that Israel is winning.<\/p>\n
We identified very large gender gaps with respect to this question. Fifty-seven percent of men said Israel is winning, compared with 25% of women. This is a gap of 32 percentage points between men and women, reflecting entirely different readings of reality. Even after analysis controlling for political views, religiosity, age, income, and education, the differences remain large. Not only does a gender-based gap remain, but it is growing from month to month. Incidentally, the group in which the sharpest decline during these months can be identified is Likud-supporting women aged 25 to 45. Among them, the sense that Israel is winning fell from 84% in March to 52% in May.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nErosion of public trust in the government also continued this month, a trend that began immediately after the peak of “Operation Roaring Lion.” In March, trust in the government reached 45%, its highest level in the past two years. However, in the two months since, the figure has gradually declined \u2013 to 42% in April and to 41% in May.<\/p>\n
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Among Jewish Israelis, trust in the IDF senior command has also gradually eroded since the peak recorded at the start of the campaign against Iran. In March, trust in the IDF senior command reached its highest level in the past two years (82%); it declined to 75% in May. Especially notable is the erosion in the share of respondents expressing “very high” trust, which has almost been cut in half over the last two months.<\/p>\n
An examination of the data by sector (Jewish and Arab) reveals deep gaps in perceptions of the senior military echelon. Among the Jewish public, a three-quarters majority (75%) expresses trust in the command; among the Arab public, the picture is reversed, with only 42% expressing any degree of trust in the IDF senior command, and half (51%) saying they do not trust the senior command (including 27% who “do not trust it at all”). The weighted trust rate among all Israelis this month stands at 68%.<\/p>\n
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U.S.-Israel Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n
This month, there was a decline in Israelis’ confidence that President Trump will “do the right thing” in the context of U.S.-Israel relations. Whereas at the height of “Operation Roaring Lion” trust in the U.S. president in this context stood at 75%, this month the figure is 62%. This trend is accompanied by a significant rise in the share of respondents who say they have no trust at all in the president, from 20% in March to 32% today \u2013 a level approaching the nadir recorded in June 2025, just before “Operation Rising Lion.” Overall, trust in Trump has been highly unstable over the past year and a half, with positive spikes around the hostage-release deal in January 2025 and around the military operations against Iran in July 2025 and March 2026.<\/p>\n
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Among those who self-identify as right-wing, 85% have trust in Trump (39% a great deal of trust and 46% some trust); among those self-identifying as center-right, the level of trust stands at 78%. As one moves leftward along the ideological spectrum, trust diminishes: among the center cohort, a majority (58%) still expresses some trust, but in the center-left and left-wing cohorts the opposite picture emerges \u2013 a majority of these respondents (55% and 75%, respectively) say they have no trust in the U.S. president in the context of U.S.-Israel relations.<\/p>\n
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Recent surveys on Israel’s standing in the United States by the Pew Research Center and Gallup have found a significant erosion in its image across almost all demographics. Israelis explain this erosion in different ways. The most common explanation among the options offered in JPPI’s May Israeli Society Index survey (28%) attributes the erosion to Israel’s foreign and security policy, but similar shares of Israelis attribute it to the ideological “craziness” of Americans (27%) or to poor Israeli public diplomacy (24%). Among the Arab public, there is broad agreement that Israeli policy is the decisive factor in the erosion of its standing in the U.S. (51%), while the Jewish public assigns greater weight to external or image-related factors, with the leading explanation being internal ideological changes in the U.S. (32%), followed by the quality of Israeli public diplomacy (27%).<\/p>\n
Among Jewish Israelis, just over half of those who self-identify as right-wing (53%) absolve Israel of primary responsibility for the erosion of its standing and instead blame ideological dynamics within the U.S., while only 5% attribute the erosion to Israeli government policy. By contrast, the centrist and left cohorts tend to place responsibility on Israel itself: centrists primarily focus on failures in Israel’s public-diplomacy apparatus (40%), while center-left and left-wing respondents primarily say that Israeli policy is mostly to blame for the erosion (57% and 78%, respectively). Notably, Israel’s identification with Donald Trump is perceived as a secondary factor across all groups.<\/p>\n
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- A similar decline was found in the share of Israelis who expect a positive long-term outcome of the Iran war.<\/strong><\/li>\n
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