Poll finds Oct. 7 a central factor in most Israelis’ election decision-making
But split between supporters, opponents of government remains largely unchanged from before Hamas attack; survey shows declining levels of optimism about future of democracy, national security, economy and social cohesion
Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught will be a central issue for the majority of Israelis in deciding which party to vote for in the Knesset election later this month, according to a poll published Tuesday.
Roughly 62% of Israelis said October 7 would be very central or fairly central to their decision-making when they head to the polls on October 27, the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) poll found.
The issue’s centrality among the majority of Israelis who are Jewish was twice as high as it was among the Arab minority.
The opposition claim that the government was responsible for the failures that led to the October 7 massacre and say they have failed to take responsibility, pointing to the government’s refusal to establish a state commission of inquiry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to blame the security chiefs for the failures and highlights Israel’s subsequent achievements on the battlefield,
The poll was published one day before the three-year anniversary of the Hamas attack, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and another 251 were taken hostage into Gaza, sparking a war that has killed over 75,000 Palestinians. The latter figure is according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but the IDF has said it is generally accurate, adding that the ratio has been roughly two to three civilians killed for every dead terror operative.
Despite the importance of the issue for Israelis, the split between supporters and opponents of the government that has remained in power since October 7 is largely the same.
A separate poll published Monday by Channel 12 found that the bloc of parties willing to sit in a government headed by Netanyahu would receive 49 seats, while the bloc of parties opposed to the premier would win 67 seats. However, eight of those would come from the majority-Arab Joint List party and five of those would go to its more moderate foil, Ra’am — two parties with whom Netanyahu’s main rivals Gadi Eisenkot and Naftali Bennett have pledged not to form a government.
A further four seats would go to the Reservists, who aim to be kingmakers and unite elements of each bloc.
The IDI poll also asked respondents which issue will have the greatest influence over their election decision-making.
Among Jews, a party’s position on foreign affairs and security tops the list, while among Arabs, crime in Arab society is ranked most important.
The IDI survey is part of its monthly Israeli Voice Index. It saw declines in levels of optimism about the future of Israeli democratic rule (from 40% to 36%), the future of national security (from 37% to 34%), the future of the economy (29% to 27%) and the future of social cohesion (21% to 19%).
The share of optimists in the Jewish sample is larger than that in the Arab sample for all four topics, but each remained below 40%.
The survey was conducted via the internet and by telephone between August 31 and September 3, with 605 men and women interviewed in Hebrew and 150 in Arabic. The margin of error was 3.57%.