By: Fern Sidman

As the possibility of a direct military confrontation between the United States and Iran edges from the realm of abstract contingency into the vocabulary of strategic planning, Israeli society finds itself confronting a question as old as the state itself, yet newly sharpened by the volatility of the present moment: when an ally prepares for war, should Israel stand at its side preemptively, or should it husband its forces for the moment of direct threat? A new public-opinion survey, reported on by World Israel News on Wednesday, illuminates the depth of Israel’s internal divisions over whether the Israel Defense Forces should join an American strike on Iran should President Trump decide to authorize military intervention against the regime in Tehran.

The poll, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute between January 25 and 29 and encompassing 755 respondents from both Jewish and Arab communities through a combination of internet and telephone interviews, offers a revealing cross-section of Israeli attitudes at a moment of heightened regional tension. World Israel News has reported that, taken as a whole, Israeli society is almost evenly split between those who favor restraint and those who endorse proactive alignment with Washington in a hypothetical military campaign.

Fifty percent of respondents said that Israel should participate in strikes against Iran only if Israel itself were attacked, while 44 percent expressed support for joining direct American military action even in the absence of an Iranian strike on Israeli territory. This narrow margin speaks volumes about the precarious balance between deterrence and preemption that has long characterized Israel’s strategic discourse.

Within this aggregate picture, however, lie pronounced variations shaped by communal identity and ideological orientation. Jewish Israelis, according to the data cited in the World Israel News report, exhibit a marginally greater propensity toward proactive involvement. Forty-eight percent of Jewish respondents favored joining an American attack on Iran, while 46 percent preferred a posture of conditional engagement, predicated on an Iranian strike against Israel. The near parity between these two positions within the Jewish majority reflects a society wrestling with the lessons of its own history: the memory of existential threats that have sometimes demanded preemptive action coexisting with a wariness born of protracted conflicts whose costs have been borne across generations.

The ideological cleavages within Jewish Israeli society are even more pronounced. Self-identified right-wing Jews emerge from the survey as the most ardent proponents of direct involvement, with 62 percent endorsing participation in an American-led strike against Iran regardless of whether Israel is attacked first. For this constituency the logic of deterrence is inseparable from the logic of demonstration. To stand aside while an ally confronts a perceived existential adversary is, in this view, to squander a moment of strategic alignment that may not recur. The Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions and regional activities have long been framed within right-wing discourse as an intolerable threat to Israel’s security architecture, one that warrants decisive action even at considerable risk.

By contrast, left-wing Jewish Israelis exhibit a markedly different sensibility. Only 31 percent of this group support direct involvement in strikes on Iran, while a commanding 66 percent advocate remaining out of any war unless Israel itself comes under attack. The World Israel News report highlighted this inversion as emblematic of a broader philosophical divergence over the uses of force in Israel’s national strategy. For many on the left, the prospect of entanglement in a U.S.-Iran conflict conjures up fears of regional conflagration and international isolation, as well as skepticism about the efficacy of military solutions to deeply entrenched geopolitical antagonisms.

Arab Israelis, whose perspectives are often underrepresented in discussions of national security, contribute an additional layer of complexity to the national debate. While the poll’s topline figures combine Jewish and Arab respondents, World Israel News has emphasized that attitudes toward related issues—such as the feasibility of international mechanisms to stabilize Gaza without compromising Israeli security—diverge notably between these communities. This divergence reflects not only differing threat perceptions but also distinct historical experiences and political imaginaries that shape how questions of war and peace are internalized within Israel’s diverse citizenry.

The survey’s exploration of attitudes toward the U.S.-backed Board of Peace, proposed as a mechanism to address governance and security challenges in the Gaza Strip, further illuminates the ambivalence with which Israelis regard international initiatives. World Israel News reported that skepticism predominates across communal lines. Just 37 percent of Jewish Israelis believe the Board of Peace can contribute positively to resolving Gaza’s problems without undermining Israeli security, while 54 percent express doubt about its utility. Among Arab Israelis, 42 percent see potential for the board to be helpful, compared to 34 percent who doubt its efficacy. These figures suggest that while Arab Israelis are marginally more optimistic about the board’s prospects, a significant reservoir of doubt persists across the population.

Yet this skepticism does not translate into wholesale rejection of engagement with the initiative. An absolute majority of Israelis—51 percent—believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should accept President Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace, even as 30 percent argue that he should decline. The World Israel News report interpreted this apparent contradiction as indicative of a nuanced public posture: Israelis may harbor doubts about the practical effectiveness of international frameworks, yet still recognize the diplomatic and strategic value of participating in such endeavors. In an era when Israel’s security challenges are increasingly enmeshed with global power dynamics, engagement itself becomes a form of strategic signaling, even when expectations of concrete outcomes are tempered by realism.

The confluence of these attitudes paints a portrait of a society caught between competing imperatives. On one hand lies the impulse toward preemption, rooted in a historical consciousness that recalls moments when delayed action proved catastrophic. On the other lies the ethic of restraint, informed by the recognition that wars, once initiated, often unfold in ways that defy even the most meticulous strategic planning. World Israel News has consistently framed this tension as the central axis of Israel’s contemporary security debate, a dialectic between vigilance and prudence that resists easy resolution.

Complicating this internal discourse is the broader geopolitical context in which Israel’s choices would be made. The prospect of U.S. military intervention against Iran, should it materialize, would reverberate across the Middle East, potentially drawing in a constellation of regional actors and non-state proxies. The World Israel News report underscored that for many Israelis, the question is not merely whether to support an ally but whether such support would ultimately enhance or imperil Israel’s own security. The calculus is fraught with uncertainty: participation could bolster deterrence and reinforce strategic alliances, yet it could also invite retaliatory strikes and entangle Israel in a conflict whose trajectory it does not control.

The poll’s findings, as disseminated by The World Israel News, thus serve less as a prescription than as a mirror held up to Israeli society at a moment of profound strategic introspection. They reveal a public acutely aware of the stakes involved, yet deeply divided over the appropriate course of action. In this sense, the data capture a broader truth about democratic societies confronting the prospect of war: consensus is elusive precisely because the consequences of action and inaction alike are so grave.

As policymakers in Jerusalem weigh their options amid shifting signals from Washington and the opaque intentions of Tehran, the voices captured in this survey will continue to resonate within Israel’s political arena. The World Israel News report emphasized that such public sentiment, while not determinative, forms an indispensable backdrop against which leaders must craft their decisions. In the end, whether Israel chooses preemption or restraint in the face of potential American action against Iran, that choice will be made not only in the strategic councils of the state but in dialogue with a society whose conscience is, at present, unmistakably divided.