Israelis oppose trading all Palestinian prisoners for Gaza hostages - poll
A stable majority of Jewish Israelis (60%) said they opposed a deal that would secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza at the price of freeing all of the Palestinian security prisoners.
Most Israelis are against a hostage deal with Hamas that would entail releasing all Palestinian prisoners, according to this week’s War in Gaza survey from the Israel Democracy Institute.
The data published in the poll was collected by sampling 502 Israeli men and women interviewed in Hebrew on the internet and on the phone. An additional 111 respondents were surveyed in this manner in Arabic.
A clear majority of Jewish Israelis (60%) said they opposed a deal that would secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza at the price of freeing all of the Palestinian security prisoners.
In contrast, an even larger proportion of Israeli Arabs ( 78.5%) supported such a deal. Nevertheless, the majority of the total population sampled remained in opposition.
In terms of the political spectrum, just under a quarter (24%) of those on the Right supported this type of exchange. Meanwhile, 46% of those in the center and 53% of those on the Left also supported such a deal.
Further, roughly half of survey respondents said they believe the war will continue for longer than four more months. Next, 23% said they believed it would continue for two-to-four months, 11% said they thought it would continue for one-to-two months, and finally, 15% said they did not know.
IDF gets broad support
Survey respondents were also far more favorable of the IDF’s performance during the war than they were of the war cabinet.
Among Jewish Israelis, 88% gave the IDF a positive assessment. Among Israeli Arabs, 43% agreed.
In contrast, just 46% of Jewish Israelis and 14% of Arab Israelis viewed the war cabinet positively. Even on the political Right, the group that viewed the war cabinet the most favorably, only a slim majority (53%) held a positive view.
Additional findings of the survey
The survey also found, amid sharp disagreements between Benny Gantz’s party, National Unity, and government, a similar proportion of Israeli Jews who believed that the party should remain in the government (61%) and Israeli Arabs who believed the party should quit the government (63%).
A large majority of National Unity voters (65%) and Likud voters (68%) said that National Unity should remain in the government.
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