Large majority of Jewish Israelis pro Iran attack, most Arab Israelis against it: poll

ISLAMABAD: A large majority (80%) of Jewish Israelis support Israel’s attack on Iran, according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll released on Thursday. A majority in favor of the attack holds across the political spectrum among Jewish Israelis.

Among the Arab sector, however, two-thirds opposed the attack. Overall, 70% of the Israeli population supported the attack, while just 13.5% opposed it.The poll was conducted between June 15 and 17, just two to four days after Israel began striking in Iran leading to significant retaliation. It was conducted on a representative sample of 737 people in Israel aged 18 and up.

Asked about the timing of the attack, which came during the continuing war in Gaza and while 53 hostages are still held there, two-thirds of Jewish respondents said that the timing was appropriate.

When looking at the political breakdown, however, 55% of Jews on the Left think that the timing of the attack was wrong, as do 34% of those in the centre. Some 80% of the right-wing Jewish population, on the other hand, said that the timing of the attack was appropriate, the poll found.

Some 84% of the Arab population also said that the timing of the attack was inappropriate.The survey also examined public opinion on whether it was right to launch an attack without securing the express intentions of the US to join it, given claims that Iran’s nuclear capabilities cannot be destroyed without American help.

More than two-thirds (69%) of Jews said that it was right. A majority of Jews on the Right and centre agreed, while only 35.5% of Jews on the Left did. Just 31.5% of Arab Israelis supported attacking without US assurance while 47% think that it was wrong to attack under these circumstances.

Some 59.5% of the Israeli public thinks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s considerations when launching the attack were “largely objective and security related.”Among Jewish Israelis, some 83% agree with this, as do half from the political centre, while 34% said his considerations are “mainly subjective and political,” the poll found.

On the Left, just 28% of respondents said that Netanyahu was motivated mainly by objective security-related considerations, while almost half (49%) said they believed that he was motivated mainly by subjective and political considerations.Among Israeli Arabs, just 18.5% believe Netanyahu’s considerations are the former, while 68% think they are the latter.Asked to what extent Israel should take the sufferings of the Iranian people into account, almost three-quarters of Jewish Israelis (73%) said “not at all or to a fairly small extent.”