Release of hostages top war goal for Israeli Jews and Arabs - poll

The Israel Democracy Institute released the results of its November 2023 Israeli Voice Index on Friday.

The results show that both Israeli Jews and Arabs see the return of hostages as the top priority of the war, but there is some disagreement on the other goals, with toppling Hamas less of a priority than restoring deterrence for Israeli Arabs.

A majority of Israelis think the government doesn't have a plan for what to do after the war, with the left being more critical and the right being less critical, although a majority from all political camps think the government does not have a plan.

Leftists are more likely to support coordination with the United States whereas rightists are more likely to support Israel acting independently. Support for coordination with the US is at 65% for the left, 54% for the center, and only 30% for the right. Two-thirds of Arabs support coordination with the US.

Jews and Arabs are decisively split on the question of issuing firearms to citizens, a majority of Jews (51%) support continuing the current policy of issuing firearms while only 5% of Arabs do. A similar proportion of Jews and Arabs believe the government should apply more stringent criteria for issuing firearms at 33% and 45% respectively. While only 7% of Jews believe the government should cease issuing firearms, 34% of Arabs do.

Support for amending the Nation-State Law

A majority of the population (56%) now supports amending the Nation-State Law to include the principle of full equality for non-Jewish citizens of the state, up from 40% in 2022, the IDI put this down to the high number of Druze and Bedouin killed since the start of the war.

Support for amending the Nation-State Law is split strongly along political lines, with 86% of leftists supporting an amendment, followed by 75% of centrists and only 35% of rightists. However, all groups saw a sharp increase in their support for an amendment since the survey in 2022, the biggest increase was for centrists, who polled at 50% in 2022, rightists also saw an increase polling 18% in 2022, leftists saw the smallest increase polling at 73% in 2022.

The split in amending the Nation-State Law also appears when religiousness is controlled, only 13% of Haredim support amending the Nation-State Law, with that number increasing as religiousness decreased, while seculars were most supportive at 68%.

Leftists and centrists overwhelmingly support halting judicial reform at 86% and 84% respectively, while rightists are evenly split on the topic being only slightly in favor of restating the reform (40.5% in favor vs 40% against).