Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Poll: 51 percent of Israelis would support attack on Iran without US green light

The Israel Democracy Institute also found that a majority of the public views Iran as an existential danger.

Missiles of Iran’s armed forces, Sept. 9, 2019. Credit: Saeediex/Shutterstock.
Missiles of Iran’s armed forces, Sept. 9, 2019. Credit: Saeediex/Shutterstock.

A recent poll of the Israeli public found that 51 percent of respondents would support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites without an American green light.

The poll, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and published on Wednesday, also found that 18 percent of the sample did not know how to answer the question, and 31 percent said they thought an American green light would be necessary before a strike.

“Note that, again, we found a large gap between Jews and Arabs: A clear majority of the former (58 percent) agreed that Israel should attack without American consent compared to only 18 percent of the latter,” according to the institute.

In addition, it found that a majority on the political right agreed with the idea of an Israeli strike without U.S. consent, while half of the respondents in the center agreed with the statement with a little more than a third on the left taking that position.

“A certain majority of the public as a whole sees Iran as constituting a great existential danger to Israel,” the institute stated. “This majority is similar to the rate of those who thought so when we asked a similar question about half a year ago. The rate of Jews who see Iran as an existential danger is significantly higher than the rate among Arab citizens of Israel.”

That legal threshold “requires enough support to have some meaningful impact on the terrorist organization’s ability to achieve its goals,” a dissenting Fourth Circuit judge wrote. “Selling a hot dog to a terrorist would not count.”
PM warns enemies ahead of Oct. 27 elections, vows IDF will maintain security control “from the Jordan River to the sea.”
“I am proud to lead a tremendous revolution in settlement in Judea and Samaria and to effectively kill the idea of a Palestinian state,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told JNS.
“I used to worry because they were black Jews, and I was more concerned that they were black,” Andrea Martin told JNS of her sons. “I never thought when I sent my kids away to college that Max would have to worry about hot coffee being poured on him in a library.”