At the end of the week we will wish each other a “Shana Tova,” which is, of course, a blessing, not an assessment. A blessing looks forward. An assessment looks back. This week, we asked Israelis to look back. We didn’t ask if they are optimistic about the future — we ask that from time to time as well, and the answer is fairly stable: slightly more than a third are optimistic. Instead, this week we asked (as part of the Jewish People Policy Institute’s monthly survey) whether their optimism (or pessimism) from a year ago had a basis in reality. Was the past year good in terms of security? Was it good economically? Was it good socially? Three identically phrased questions, and from the combination of all three, we can offer a balance sheet. Not a balance sheet of the state’s actual condition, but a balance sheet of what the country’s citizens think about its condition. Perhaps justifiably — perhaps not.
Here is the first finding, and it is not particularly pleasant to write about on the eve of a holiday: nearly half of Israelis — 45% — say the year that’s ending was not a good year. In what way was it not good? This half says it was not good in any of the three areas we asked about. Not in security, not in the economy, and not in society. Among the Arab public, it’s seven out of 10. And opposite this half, how many Israelis say the year was actually good in all three areas? Only 12%. One in eight of us.
We used the numbers to divide Israelis into groups. Two groups are easy to identify. One says: everything was good. The state of security, the economy, the society. This group’s characteristics: it is the most right-wing, the most religious and, correspondingly, the most satisfied. If we connect the positive assessment to the political situation, a fairly predictable conclusion emerges. Nine out of ten members of this group see Benjamin Netanyahu as the most suitable candidate for prime minister. This is a logical position: if everything is good, there is no reason to change the leadership. Of course, the inverse is also possible: because these Israelis do not want a new leadership, they have no choice but to say that everything is good (otherwise, the group’s members would fall into cognitive dissonance, a state humans try to avoid).
A second group of Israelis says everything was bad. This is the larger group, and among Jews, it can be characterized as follows: a group of Israelis identifying as center or left supporters. A secular group. More than half of them see Gadi Eisenkot as the most suitable candidate for prime minister. This group — 45% — invites an interpretation of despair. One might think it contains many who have practically given up. But that is not the case: 57% of the members of this group believe the upcoming elections will be “the most important elections in the history of the state.” This is the highest rate among all the groups. A negative balance sheet for the year does not lead to apathy. It leads to a sense of emergency and mobilization. A feeling of an impending decisive moment.
Alongside the two groups we described, there is a third group. A group that says the year was good, or at least reasonable, in security and the economy, but the year was not good, and perhaps even bad, from a social perspective. This is not just another rung on the ladder between the satisfied and the disappointed. This is a fundamentally different position: the state is at least partially functioning, but society is fractured – 21% of Israelis hold this view, and 26% of Jews. And it is no coincidence we specified Jews: 99% of the members of this group are Jewish. There are almost no Arabs in it. Anyone in the Arab public who says the year was socially bad says it was also bad in terms of security and the economy. Only Jews make this separation – logical or absurd – between the state and society.
And what about everyone else? These three groups amount to 78%. That leaves 22% of Israelis whose balance sheet is mixed: one good area and two bad, or two good and one bad, in various combinations. We could leave them as a fourth group, but it isn’t really a group; it’s a catch-all basket. So we did what you do with a basket: we divided its contents according to the rule that already distinguishes the three main groups — did the state function, and did society function? Those who viewed the year as good only in security, or only in the economy, but not in society, are essentially saying what the third group says: the state yes (to some degree), society no. They join that group. Those who viewed the year as good only in society, but not in security and the economy, are saying that the state did not function either. We added them to the “everything is bad” group.
This is how we get an Israel of three groups. Sixteen percent say: the state is functioning and society is functioning. Thirty-five percent – more than a third – say: the state is functioning, but society is in crisis; 48% say: the state is not functioning. Nearly half of Israelis believe the state failed to deliver the goods this year.
The first group feels no need to change a thing. Things are good for them.
The last group is waiting for elections with a sense of emergency.
Those in the middle are still trying to understand why a functioning state has a broken society.
Something I wrote in Hebrew
See the graph, but here’s some text to precede it:
The 2026 election campaign is, overall, a fairly stable one. Perhaps this is unsurprising: very few Israelis needed to wait for June or July 2026 to make up their minds about the government, the opposition, the right-wing bloc, the social and security situation, the Kaplan protests, or Naftali Bennett. Most of us live here, most of the time. Most of us have fairly firm opinions on most issues. We have known the prime minister – the main figure around whom the elections revolve – for a long time. There are Israelis who will vote for him even if (to paraphrase Donald Trump) he were to go out into the street and start shooting passersby. There are Israelis who would not vote for him even if he managed to register the moon in the land registry under the name of the State of Israel. Since voters do not tend to change their minds, what remains are mainly orchestrated maneuvers: rearranging chairs on the deck of the political blocs.
A week’s numbers
Parties go up and down, but as the race truly begins, it is important to see how stable views are. Yes again, this is a for-Bibi vs. throw-Bibi election cycle.
A reader’s response
Josh asks: Is it likely that no one will have the numbers to form a coalition after Election Day? My response: Yes. In such case, it’d either be a new election, a minority coalition or a unity coalition. A minority coalition is what the opposition is likely to try.
Shmuel Rosner is senior political editor. For more analysis of Israeli and international politics, visit Rosner’s Domain at jewishjournal.com/rosnersdomain.
