Israelis hunkered down Thursday night and braced for Iran’s promised retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas terror masters Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh. As they did so, Channel 14 broadcast the results of a Direct Polls survey of the public’s perspective on Israel’s strategic condition and imperatives. The results were stunning.
The poll included three questions. The first related to the public’s staying power in the current war, asking, “How long are you willing to live with the war situation?”
Some 22% of Israelis said they have had enough and want the war to end. Another 14% said they are willing to keep the war going for a few more weeks or months. And 64% of Israelis said they would support fighting the war “for as long as it takes.”
The poll then moved to the public’s assessment of whether the July 31 assassinations of the Hezbollah and Hamas kingpins would set back or advance the completion of the war. Of the answers, 21% of Israelis said the assassinations would prolong the war; 10% had no opinion; and 69% of Israelis said the assassinations expedited the completion of the war.
Finally, the public was asked how Israel should respond to Iran’s threatened aggression. Some 35% of Israelis said that Israel should carry out a limited campaign with the goal of achieving a diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah. Four percent had no opinion. And 61% said that Israel should not be limiting itself to defense but rather should respond to Iran’s threats with a preemptive strike to block Iran from attacking Israel.
The poll shows definitively that after 300 days of war, the Israeli public maintains its unswerving resolve to see the war through to victory. It is willing to pay whatever price is required to defeat its enemies and understands that there is no diplomatic solution to military problems, only military solutions.
Since you need to defeat your enemies to win a war, Israelis are uninterested in “diplomatic initiatives,” and seek offensive operations to defensive operations.
They want to cut a deal
The extraordinary determination and courage of the Israeli people 300 days after Oct. 7 should be a source of strength and inspiration for Israel’s allies. But the Biden-Harris administration doesn’t want to hear about it. Indeed, the sentiments of the public place the Jewish state on a collision course with the administration and with the leadership of the Democratic Party more generally.
At the beginning of the war, the administration’s professed interest in supporting Israel, degrading Hamas’s power and denying Hezbollah the ability to wage a massive offensive against Israel overlapped with Jerusalem’s determination to defeat its enemies, and gave Israelis faith in the administration’s professed “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security. Today, Israelis realize that the overlapping interests of Oct. 8 are largely gone. The administration doesn’t want Israel to win. They want to cut a deal.
Moreover, in October, Biden was capable of drawing a clear moral distinction between Israel and Hamas. Today, Biden, Harris and their advisers hector Israelis with slanderous assertions of moral equivalence, or worse, in the administration’s “on the one hand, on the other hand,” comparisons to Israel’s war effort and the genocidal goals of its enemies. Far from viewing Biden and Harris as their friends, Israelis are becoming increasingly aware of the central role the administration is playing in the effort to demonize and criminalize Israel, its leaders and its soldiers.
If it hadn’t been clear before, the administration’s response to Netanyahu’s July 24 speech to the Joint Houses of Congress last week, and its tepid, even angry response to Israel’s assassination of Shukr and Haniyeh this week made the administration’s animosity undeniable.
In his address, Netanyahu gave a stirring description of the heroism and morality of the people of Israel and the imperative—for the United States—of Israeli victory in the war. For his efforts, he received more than 50 standing ovations from representatives of both parties in the well of Congress. But in their meetings with Netanyahu, Biden and Harris ignored what Netanyahu said completely and insisted that the only thing they support at this juncture is a hostage deal that would leave the vast majority of the 115 hostages in Gaza, and guarantee Hamas’s survival as a regime and a terror army.
Likewise, while failing for more than 24 hours to condemn Hezbollah’s massacre of 12 children in Majdal Shams last Saturday, Biden and Harris made no effort to hide their anger at Netanyahu for ordering the assassination of Shukr and Haniyeh, despite the fact that both men were enemies of the United States no less than of Israel.
Shukr was responsible for the 1983 murder of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut, in addition to the bombing of the U.S. and French embassies in the Lebanese capital. He was wanted by the FBI, with a $5 million prize on his head for four decades. As head of Hamas, Haniyeh led a genocidal terror group which, like its Iranian state sponsor, views America as the “Great Satan” whose annihilation it seeks first by destroying the “Little Satan”: Israel.
Not only did the administration refuse to support Israel’s move against the terror master, Biden and Harris made it clear to both Iran and Israel and the United States was livid at Israel for carrying out the mission in response to the massacre of children that they failed to condemn.
Disconnect from the goals of the war
On Thursday afternoon, Biden and Harris spoke by phone with Netanyahu. Israelis still of the opinion that Biden and Harris are serious when they speak of their “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security could have been forgiven if they assumed that the two U.S. leaders would use the conversation as a means to express their support for America’s top Middle East ally as it readied for the expected assault. But by Biden’s own telling, the message they delivered was anything but supportive.
Speaking to reporters, Biden said: “I had a very direct meeting [i.e. phone call] with the Prime Minister [Netanyahu] today, very direct. We have the basis for a ceasefire, and they should move on it, and they should move on it now.”
Asked whether Haniyeh’s assassination “ruined” chances for a ceasefire, Biden responded: “It’s not helped.”
Axios later expanded on the details of the “very direct” conversation between Biden and Harris and Netanyahu, reporting that Biden told Netanyahu that he blamed Israel for the escalation in the war. The United States, Biden reportedly said, would help Israel defend against missile attacks from Lebanon and Iran. But that if Israel seeks to take offensive action on either front, Washington will abandon it. The president also underlined that the United States wants an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and expects Israel to deliver. In other words, the administration opposes Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas and driving the Iranian proxy terror regime from power permanently completely.
The total disconnect between Israeli determination to see the war through to victory and the Biden-Harris administration’s total opposition to Israeli victory against Iran or any of its proxy forces has not escaped the attention of most Israelis. They are increasingly rallying around their government, and particularly, Netanyahu, as they see him standing up less to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and more to the administration, pursuing victory in the face of American opposition.
The more Biden, Harris and their advisers harass Israel—the more they accuse Israel of “escalating” the war—the less Israelis listen to them. Whereas Israelis greeted Biden’s decision after Oct. 7 to deploy two carrier groups to the region with relief, seeing it as a testament to his commitment to Israel’s survival and security, the administration’s announcement that it is deploying naval assets back to the Eastern Mediterranean is being met with skepticism. Israelis question whether the deployment is geared towards supporting Israel or preventing it from degrading Hezbollah’s capacity to wage war against Israel.
Israeli media coverage of the U.S. presidential race drips with dread. As Harris rises in polls, it is dawning on Israeli leaders, warfighters and the general citizenry that if she wins, the current dismal state of U.S.-Israel relations is likely to be the best that they can expect from Washington going forward.
Israel resisted acknowledging the administration’s hostility to its determination to win the war for as long as it could. Leading politicians used Biden’s obvious hostility towards Netanyahu as a means to attack Netanyahu, whom they accused of undermining U.S.-Israel relations. After Netanyahu received 51 standing ovations from Congress, even Netanyahu’s opponents are being forced to admit that he isn’t the problem. Biden’s hostility to Israeli victory is the problem. Netanyahu’s determination to win, despite Biden’s opposition, is widely perceived as the only reason that Israel is still in the fight.
The long-term consequence of Israel’s awakening to the reality of the leadership of the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israeli power and even survival is already beginning to show. Israelis are less interested in U.S. opinion than they were until recently. They are more determined to end Israel’s strategic dependence on U.S. military assistance and munitions. And they are more willing to stand up for themselves when challenged by “friends” abroad.
This shift does not mean that Israelis no longer admire and even love the United States. It means that Israelis are beginning to wake up to the necessity—76 years after achieving independence—for their nation to be strategically independent. Whoever is in power in the United States, that attitude and determination can only have a positive impact on the alliance in the coming years.