Political scientist Dalia Scheindlin is a longtime expert on Israeli public opinion and an analyst of the domestic political landscape. As the new year approaches, the Assad regime has collapsed in Syria. Ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon. Hostilities in Gaza continue since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, in which more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed. I wanted to find out exactly what had changed and what had remained the same in Israel over the past few months. I spoke by phone with Mr. Scheindlin, also a policy fellow at the Century Foundation, columnist for Haaretz newspaper, and author of “The Crooked Timber of Israel’s Democracy.” In our conversation, edited for length and clarity, we discussed how her understanding of Israel’s objectives for the region has changed recently. Why did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity rise again after declining immediately after October 7th? And why are the vast numbers of Palestinian civilian casualties still largely unrecorded in Israel?
Regarding domestic politics, do you feel that Israel has finally entered the post-October 7th era?
The period after October 7th is very easily defined in research studies. It’s rare for researchers to see such clear trends in the data. In the first six months after October 7, the government’s ratings plummeted across all metrics, and the conventional wisdom was that Netanyahu would not survive. Then, around April 2024, a clear tipping point began, and his polls all began a slow, gradual recovery on the same metrics.
The same applies to the popularity of his party and the original coalition, which has returned to almost pre-war levels. For Prime Minister Netanyahu, it’s about 40 percent. He leads in polls over his opponents in terms of who people think should be prime minister. This is not as good a situation as in the November 2022 elections, when Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition partners won 64 of the 120 seats in parliament. I mean, they’re not doing very well, but we’re definitely in the post-October 7th period.
You mentioned that April was a turning point. It was then that the war with Hamas expanded regionally.
It coincides with April. I don’t think we should be held responsible for Hezbollah’s fateful decision to attack Israel in the early morning hours of October 8, which essentially internationalized or localized the conflict. But what happened in April? Israel assassinated the top commander of Iran’s Quds Force in Damascus, which set off a chain of events that led to Iran’s first-ever attack on Israel and subsequent Israeli response. All of this was in April, when Prime Minister Netanyahu’s polls began to rise. The war with Hezbollah then intensified over the summer. Another major turning point was in September, when Israel launched a pager bomb and shortly thereafter assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
But even before that, in July, Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. This was a great sign to the Israelites that the old Israel was back and could do anything anywhere. It gave Israelis a sense that the country was recovering. It’s all because of the regional front. I have come to the conclusion that the Gaza issue is essentially a lose-lose issue for Prime Minister Netanyahu. They cannot leave Gaza because they prioritize their coalition partners. Nor do I think he is a victim or trapped by his coalition partners. He put them there. But that’s not a good problem for him. Israelis have grown more confident in the escalating regional situation and perceived Israeli victory on these fronts, contributing to his rise.
You have said that Gaza is a “losing cause” for Prime Minister Netanyahu. Does that mean the public doesn’t seem to agree with him on Gaza? It certainly appears, at least from a distance, that the country is willing to put up with continued war, incredibly dire humanitarian consequences, and the failure of hostages to return.
After October 7, people were shocked, stunned, paralyzed, afraid of rockets, and trying to figure out where their bodies were and whether their children had died or been captured. It was really very powerful and kind of a numbing stage. The turning point came, and it happened quickly around the hostages. By November 2023, people were already taking to the streets, realizing that the government was not prioritizing hostage release. They organized large marches, mobilizing civil society networks built during judicial reform protests earlier that year. Feelings of being stunned, frightened, and traumatized quickly gave way to social mobilization, in part because, by extraordinary coincidence, much of that social mobilization had already been carried out. That’s true.
However, after a while, it became clear to Israelis that the Israeli government either did not actually intend to prioritize the hostages or was always looking for a way to avoid that deal in some way. The temptation to blame Hamas is strong, but ultimately Israelis, through the many leaks, reports, and analyzes that emerge every time negotiations break down, have begun to get the impression that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not doing that. . He’s not making this a priority because he doesn’t want to stop the war, and he doesn’t want to stop the war because he doesn’t want to lose the Union. Many think it’s because he’s on trial for corruption. (The charges center around accusations of bribery and fraud.) I think that’s a bit of a leap. He just wants to stay in power.
We get a lot of questions from America about why Israelis are putting up with it. We have to realize that every Saturday night there are thousands of people on the streets.
I don’t want to say that no one is pushing for the release of the hostages, but I just mentioned that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approval rating has increased. And it’s clear from a distance that Netanyahu doesn’t care about the hostages. It’s a little surprising for a country that once exchanged one captured soldier for several people.
One thousand twenty-seven. (This was a prisoner exchange with Hamas in 2011.) Yeah. It’s not just the country. Netanyahu did it.
So it’s a little surprising to me that a prime minister who not only doesn’t prioritize hostages, but who clearly cares more about staying in power than he does about hostages, hasn’t been hurt more politically.
Yeah. There is a contradiction in the way people express themselves. Despite its improved reputation, it still lacks majority support. That’s partly because he’s clearly out of step with the majority of the public’s position regarding hostages. Every time we ask the public with different types of questions in different types of surveys, there is always a majority or plurality of supporters who support the release of hostages regardless of the cost. Currently, in most surveys, approximately 70% of Israelis say they would prefer a hostage deal to the alternative, including destroying Hamas by any means necessary.
Those who support the government, especially the core group who stayed with Netanyahu during the first six months of the war, even as his overall support waned, may emotionally care about the hostages, but , it’s like “thoughts and prayers.” of emotions. They do not want Palestinian prisoners released. They may truly believe that Israel needs to further destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip. What those who hold this opinion have in common is that if we stop the war now, the soldiers who died will die in vain, so this agreement prioritizes the lives of the hostages over the lives of the soldiers. I hear arguments like this.
Some people want to continue the war until they conquer Gaza. About a third of the population supports the most ultranationalist, fundamentalist, and Jewish supremacist parts of the government.
You wrote in a recent article that, in other words, at the beginning of the war people were saying they wanted to resettle Gaza like Israel has done in parts of the West Bank. You wrote that you were a little skeptical about it, but given some of the things we’ve seen over the past few months, where things are headed in Gaza and perhaps parts of Syria and Lebanon. It’s hard to argue with whether it’s true or not.
