20% of coalition voters back Lebanon truce, vs. 50% of opposition voters, poll finds
Snap polling indicates no consensus as to whether Israel or Hezbollah emerged as victor after 14 months of fighting, voting preferences not significantly impacted by ceasefire deal
A snap television poll on Tuesday evening found Israelis divided over the framework for a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, set to go into effect in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Asked by Channel 12 news if they support or oppose “the arrangement that has been drawn up as regards Lebanon,” 37 percent of respondents said they supported the terms, 32% said that they opposed them and 31% said they didn’t know.
Among supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, just 20% said they supported the ceasefire deal, while 45% said they opposed it and 35% said they didn’t know.
Among those who voted for opposition parties, 50% said they supported the ceasefire deal framework, while 22% said they were opposed to it and 28% said they didn’t know.
The security cabinet approved the ceasefire deal by 10 ministers to one on Tuesday night, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as the sole opponent to it.
The deal, which will halt the fighting on the northern front and inside Lebanon, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire during which Israeli forces would withdraw from Lebanon, and Hezbollah would end its armed presence south of the Litani River, which in most areas runs some 29 kilometers north of the border with Israel.
Asked whether they consider Israel or Hezbollah to have emerged as a victor after nearly 14 months of fighting, both along the Israel-Lebanon border and inside Lebanon, 20% of respondents said they believe Israel to have won and 19% said Hezbollah did. Fifty percent of people said that the fighting appeared set to end without a clear victor, while 11% said they didn’t know.
As to how long they believe the ceasefire deal would hold, 24% said they thought it would last “for years,” while 28% said it would last “a few months,” and 30% said it would “collapse after a short time.” Another 18% of people said that they didn’t know.
The agreement is set to bring an end to the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group, which began firing into Israel the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel, in support of its fellow Iran-backed terror group, drawing Israeli reprisals and leading to the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel. Fighting intensified in late September, with Israel killing much of Hezbollah’s leadership and launching a limited ground incursion on October 1.
Political blocs not significantly impacted
The Channel 12 poll also asked respondents who they would vote for if elections were held today.
The responses to the question indicated that the unhappiness on the right over the ceasefire had not significantly impacted voting preferences, as the balance of power between the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs was unchanged since its previous poll.
The bloc of parties loyal to Netanyahu would receive a total of 51 seats in the 120-member Knesset, the opposition bloc would receive 64, and the Arab-majority alliance Hadash-Ta’al would hold the other five.
Netanyahu’s Likud party would win 25 seats if elections would be held today, the poll found, but he would most likely be unable to form a government, as the next four biggest parties would be those currently in the opposition.
Benny Gantz’s National Unity would receive 18 seats, while Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid would win 15; Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu would win 14 and Yair Golan’s Democrats — a Labor and Meretz union — would receive 12 seats.
Ultra-Orthodox Shas and ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit would receive nine seats each, while ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism would win eight. Finally, Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am would each win five seats.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope and Arab party Balad would all fall below the minimum threshold for Knesset seats, and remain on the outside.
The poll also fond that were former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who on Tuesday criticized the emerging Lebanon ceasefire deal, return to politics with a new party, it would win 23 seats, causing Likud to drop two seats, down to 23 as well.
In that scenario, the Democrats would receive 11 seats; Yesh Atid, 10; National Unity, 10; Shas, nine; Yisrael Beytenu, nine; UTJ, eight; Otzma Yehudit, seven; Hadash-Ta’al, five; and Ra’am five.
The survey polled 510 respondents and had a 4.4% margin of error.
