Against the backdrop of Israel’s escalating ground offensive in Gaza and this weekend’s massacre at a humanitarian aid distribution site there, several recent polls show Israeli support for the war in Gaza on the decline. Approximately 70 percent of Israelis now prefer to end the war if it means bringing home the hostages still being held in the territory.
Distinguished Israeli leaders are also speaking out more forcefully against what they view as crimes against humanity committed by Israeli forces in Gaza. In a recent op-ed, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert wrote Israel is waging a “war of extermination: the indiscriminate, unrestrained, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians,” a view he reiterated on CNN on Sunday. Over 1,200 Israeli academics have penned a letter calling for an end to the suffering of the Palestinians. And as many as 40 percent of Israeli conscripts are refusing service; one stated, “I would prefer [jail] over killing children.”
But even as this peace—or anti-war crimes—movement gains ground, a much more disturbing poll of Israeli citizens published on May 22 alleges that nearly half of Israelis support the extermination of all Palestinians in Gaza. This poll had asked Israelis to signal their support for or opposition to Israeli policies in Gaza as well as dehumanizing rhetoric, particularly biblical references to exterminating enemies, popularized by rightwing religious figures and political elites since Hamas’ attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. The survey focused on the rhetoric of ultra-orthodox Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used similar references to justify Israel’s siege warfare against Gaza, which has killed an estimated 64,000 people—a third of them under 18 years old—according to Reuters, with many more at risk of starvation.