Peace Index: January 2008

The publication of the Winograd Commission's final report has not eroded the belief of the majority of the Israeli Jewish public that the Second Lebanon War was justified. Indeed, this majority now exceeds the majority that justified the war after the commission's interim report was published. A more dramatic change occurred, however, in assessments of the commission's toughness toward the military and political echelons.

Whereas, after the interim report was published, the prevailing view was that the commission had been equally tough toward both echelons, with a tendency to be slightly tougher toward the political one, today the dominant view is that the commission was tougher toward the military. The findings show that more Israelis disagree with assigning more responsibility to the military than agree with it. At the same time, there has been a significant decline in the public's belief that the report revealed all the important facts about the war, and in its belief that the report will lead to substantial changes in Israeli decision-making. Unlike the findings of the survey conducted after the interim report appeared, today only a minority thinks all the important facts were disclosed and the shortcomings will be addressed. Nevertheless, a clear majority says it was proper to set up the Winograd Commission in the first place.

As for the report's implications, and the analyses of its effect on the prime minister's status, the data reveal a small majority saying Ehud Olmert cannot continue to serve in his post. A majority also believes the current government as a whole should not continue to serve, with most favoring new elections. Only a small minority wants the present government to continue serving but under a different leader. Yet, despite the widespread opposition to the present Olmert-led government, the public is divided on whether the political system includes leaders better qualified to be prime minister and has a hard time pointing to possible candidates, indicating that Israel is in a leadership crisis at least in the political sphere.

Note that on all these issues, no significant gaps were found between the interviews done before and after the publication of Prof. Yehezkel Dror's words on the considerations that guided the commission.

Those are the main findings of the Peace Index survey that was carried out from Monday to Wednesday, 4-6 February.

Even after publication of the Winograd Commission's final report, some two-thirds (63%) of the Jewish public think the decision to launch the Second Lebanon War was justified (25% say it was the wrong decision). Indeed, more now justify the decision than immediately after the interim report was published (58% in April 2007). A segmentation of support and opposition by voting in the most recent Knesset elections shows that the highest rate of support for the war is now found among voters for the

National Religious Party-National Union-88%, while the lowest is among Meretz and Likud voters-in both cases 48%. Note that despite the low rate of support among the voters for those two parties, there are still more approving the decision than disapproving it (42% in the case of Meretz and 38% among Likud voters; the rest did not know). Among voters for the rest of the parties, a majority of 60%-68% justifies the decision to go to war.

As for the Winograd findings, only slightly more than a third (36%) think the final report discloses all the important facts about the war; 46% thought so regarding the interim report. As for whether the final report was equally tough toward the political and military echelons, the prevailing view-45.5%-is that it was tougher toward the military (20% say it was equally tough toward both and 7% think it was tougher toward the political echelon). However, only 35% go along with the commission's assignment of responsibility whereas 46% disagree with it. Indeed, the assessments after the interim report was published were dramatically different; thus, 48% thought it equally blamed the two echelons, 15% saw it as tougher toward the political one, and only 9% said it was tougher toward the military one.

What will be the results of the commission's work? After the interim report, a majority- 52.5%-thought all the important facts about the war had been revealed and this would lead to a revamping of the Israeli decision-making system. After the final report, however, the number believing this has declined to 43.5% while 48% say the commission's work did not uncover all the problems and will not lead to an overhaul.

This is apparently linked to analyses claiming the political echelon got off relatively easy, whether because of the Supreme Court's decision regarding personal conclusions or the view that, having been appointed by the prime minister, the commission was not suitably tough toward him. It is interesting here that a statistical analysis of the part of the sample interviewed after Prof. Yehezkel Dror's statements about the commission having a political aspect did not show an effect compared to the positions of those interviewed before Dror spoke.

Despite these reservations, 62% think it was proper to set up the commission (28.5% say it was the wrong move and the rest do not know). About two-thirds also reported being interested or very interested in the findings of the final report.

As for report's political implications, a small majority of 53% think or are sure that, in light of the commission's revelations, Ehud Olmert cannot continue serving as prime minister (38% think or are sure that he can and the rest have no clear opinion on the matter). On the question of what should be done in this regard, views are divided: 40% favor going to new elections, 31% say the government can continue to serve in its present composition, and 22% think it can continuing serving but under a different prime minister. A segmentation of the answers to these questions by Knesset voting reveals that only among Kadima and Labor voters does a majority (62% and 54.5%, respectively) think Ehud Olmert can remain in his post now that the Winograd Commission's final report has been published. Meretz voters are almost evenly split with a slight advantage for those saying he can continue to serve-48% vs. 43%. The rate of those saying Olmert can continue in his post is lowest among Yisrael Beiteinu (9%) and Likud voters (16%). Not surprisingly, the lowest support for quickly going to elections is among Labor (only 20%), Meretz (23%), and Kadima (26%) voters. This is apparently because these three parties fear that if elections are held soon they will not fare as well as in the previous elections.

As for Labor remaining in the government, the survey, which was conducted after Ehud Barak announced he was not resigning, finds the public divided on whether Labor should stay or leave-45% for each position (the rest have no clear opinion). Again as expected, support for Labor leaving the government is highest among Likud, National Religious Party-National Union, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Torah Judaism voters, while the highest support for remaining in the government is among Labor, Kadima, Meretz, and Pensioners voters.

We asked, "In your opinion, in the political system today is there or is there not a leader or leaders who could better serve as prime minister than Ehud Olmert?" Here too the public is divided, with 48% saying there is an alternative leader suitable for the post and 43% saying there is not. That is, despite the widespread opposition to the Ehud Olmertled government remaining in office, the public is hard pressed to point to alternative candidates, indicating that Israel is in a leadership crisis at least in the political sphere. It appears, moreover, that the crisis is not only one of leadership but is also systemic, as the public's very low rates of trust in the government (12%) and the Knesset (15%) suggest. Interestingly, this question produced different results regarding Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Barak in particular. In these two cases, the rate of those saying there is currently no leader better suited to the post is clearly higher than the number saying there is such an alternative (regarding Livni, 48% think there is no suitable alternative vs. 38% who think there is, and regarding Barak the figures are 47% vs. 41%).

The peace indexes for this month were: Oslo Index: 32.8 (Jewish sample-29.3) Negotiation Index: 42.9 (Jewish sample-39.3)

The Peace Index Project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on 4-6 February 2008 and included 595 interviewees who represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size is 4.5%.

Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann

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