(JNS) Three opinion polls in Israel, and another of US Jews, this week showed widespread support for the joint US-Israeli military operation against the Iranian regime.
Approval rates in Israel were 82%, 81% and 72% in the polls by the Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI), the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), respectively. The polls had samples of 599, 954 and 792 adult respondents.
JPPI also polled 692 U.S. Jews, where 68% of respondents said they supported the US decision to strike Iran.
Of the US Jews polled, 26% said they opposed the operation. Support for the operation was in direct proportion to the respondent’s self-attested level of conservatism, with none in the “strong conservative” respondents opposing and 62% of the “strong liberal” group in opposition to the operation.
Support for regime change as the primary objective for the operation also correlated with attested levels of conservatism (41% among “strong conservatives,” 31% in the “leaning conservative” group). Liberals who supported the operation tended to back the elimination of the nuclear, ballistic and terror-sponsoring abilities of Iran as a primary objective (43% of “strong liberals,” 64% in the “leaning liberal” category).
In Israel, support among Jewish respondents ranged from 93% (IDI), 92% (INSS) to 85% (JPPI.) Opposition among Jews was 4%, 5% and 3% respectively.
Arabs who responded to the polls in Israel were far less supportive of the operation, with 60% opposing in the IDI poll; 49% in the INSS poll and 55% in the JPPI poll.
Arabs were also more skeptical of the operation’s ability to significantly damage Iran’s nuclear and ballistic capabilities, with 36% of Arabs telling INSS that Iran’s ballistic capabilities would escape significant damage and 42% saying the same of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Among Jews, 68% predicted major damage to the nuclear program and 78% said this about Iran’s ballistic arsenal.
The INSS poll showed an increase in Jewish respondents’ confidence in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, up to 46% from 41% in an INSS poll conducted shortly before the military operation’s launch. Lack of confidence in Netanyahu among Arabs remained steady in both polls, at 88%.
Confidence in the Israel Defense Forces among Jews rose from 85% in the February INSS poll to 90% in March.
Among the most striking data in the JPPI survey concerned the perception among Israelis that Israel was winning the war generally, said Shmuel Rosner, a JPPI senior fellow. According to the JPPI poll’s findings, 54% of Israelis and 62% of Jews believe that Israel is winning the war, “the highest rate of feeling of victory recorded in the past year, after a prolonged period of skepticism and apprehension,” said Rosner.
Three quarters of respondents in JPPI’s poll in Israel said they trusted US President Donald Trump. Among Israeli Jews, confidence in Trump was at 82%. Confidence in Trump was at 64% in a JPPI poll from July 2025.
Yedidia Stern, the president and CEO of JPPI, said in a statement about the poll that it showed that “The Iranian threat creates a rare moment of consensus in Israeli society.”
Despite sharp political divisions that have characterized Israel in recent years, “a large majority of the public supports the decision to act and believes that the campaign could change the balance of power in the Middle East,” he added. “Accordingly, the data also reflects national resilience, with a positive change in the sense of security.”
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