Israelis Back War With Iran but Doubt It Solves Their Security Problems

Support for Israel's war against Iran remains strong across the Jewish public, but a growing chorus of doubts about the campaign's long-term strategic value, and about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership, has emerged alongside the battlefield noise.

When Operation Roaring Lion launched at the end of February 2026 in a joint US-Israeli strike on Iran, 93 percent of Jewish Israelis backed it, according to an Israel Democracy Institute survey conducted March 2-3. Overall support across the full population, including Arab citizens, stood at 82 percent. But the numbers have steadily softened since. By the fourth week of fighting, Jewish support for continuing the operation had fallen to 78 percent, and the share of Jewish Israelis expressing strong support dropped from 74 percent in the first survey to 68 percent in the second. The proportion of Jewish Israelis who said they "somewhat" or "strongly" oppose the war more than doubled, from 4 percent to 11.5 percent, according to a Haaretz analysis of IDI data released in late March. Among Arab citizens, opposition held firm and support collapsed further, with only 19 percent backing continued operations in the IDI's third survey, conducted March 22-26.

Crucially, skepticism about what the war can actually deliver is cutting across ethnic and political lines. A majority of both Jewish and Arab respondents told IDI researchers that Iran's resilience has proven "somewhat stronger or much stronger" than the operation's planners anticipated. On the question of timeline, a plurality of 35 percent of Jewish respondents believed Israeli society could sustain the campaign only through the end of March, while just 28 percent, including a 35 percent plurality of right-wing voters, said the country could hold out "as long as it takes."

Goal-setting itself has become contested. In a Channel 12 poll released March 28, 52 percent of participants named the overthrow of the Iranian regime as the true measure of victory, while 49 percent pointed to the destruction or seizure of enriched uranium. A separate IDI survey found roughly 70 percent of Jewish Israelis believe Iran's nuclear program can be eliminated, but that confidence drops to 61 percent when the question shifts to whether the ayatollah's regime can be toppled entirely. Arab Israelis were far more pessimistic, with fewer than one-third expressing confidence in either objective.

Netanyahu's standing sits conspicuously below that of the military officials prosecuting the campaign. The Channel 12 poll gave IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir a 7.3 out of 10 and Mossad Director David Barnea a 7.1. Netanyahu scored 5.6, while Defense Minister Yisrael Katz received a 5 and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich drew only a 3.

Questions about Netanyahu's motives have also fractured along ideological lines. The IDI's March 22-26 survey found that while about two-thirds of Jewish Israelis overall believe his decision to launch the war was driven by legitimate security considerations, more than half of left-wing Jewish respondents attributed it to personal-political calculations. Among centrist Jewish voters, 45 percent pointed to personal-political motives compared with 38 percent who cited security reasoning. A majority of Arab respondents, 55 percent, said personal-political considerations explained the war's launch. Only 40 percent of left-wing Jewish respondents said they trusted Netanyahu to manage the operation at all.

The pattern across successive polls points to a public that endorsed the war's opening logic but remains genuinely uncertain whether the costs will be matched by durable security gains.