NCF Research Officer Felix Mohaupt, explores the recent split between Trump and Netanyahu on Iran and their Nuclear Program and looks into the public opinion in Israel regarding a proposed strike on Iran, even without US support.
With the airstrikes between India and Pakistan in Kashmir from the 7th to the 10th of May, the continuing attempts at a ceasefire in Ukraine and the recent pause in airstrikes against Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen, national opinion in Israel has continued to worsen towards the idea of expanding IDF military operations towards Iran.
On the 5th of May, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) opened a new assault and offensive on Hamas positions in Gaza, emboldened by the implicit support offered by the Trump administration to the Netanyahu administration. Netanyahu announced an ‘intensified’ offensive in Gaza called Operation Gideon’s Chariot which effectively confirmed Israel’s plans to forcibly remove Gaza’s population and to then conquer the Strip.
Concerningly, attention has also moved towards Iran. The Trump administration has never been friendly to Iran, with Trump’s first term focused on a campaign of ‘maximum pressure’ on the Middle Eastern nation, a campaign that was capped by the assassination of Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. But recent releases about Trump’s ambivalence to a campaign against Iran has allegedly spooked Netanyahu into considering a unilateral operation against Iranian facilities using airstrikes.
Furthermore it is clearer than ever that the opinions of Israel´s citizens are divergent on a number of critical foreign policy decisions and policies from the Netanyahu administration and government and that they risk losing domestic support further if they continue to antagonise Iran.
Israelis are not optimistic about the domestic situation
The Israeli public has not held a consistently favourable opinion of Netanyahu or his many cabinets for years. Since Netanyahu’s accusation and then trial for corrupt practices, his proposed plans for the Israeli Supreme Court and his failure to protect Israelis on October 7th, only his impressive ability to wrangle together governments with the aid of extreme right-wing political parties has kept him in power. Otherwise though, Israel has seen major protests and opposition to their government for years on end.
Netanyahu, who painted himself as the only man capable of securing Israel’s security, has been kept in power by invoking the need for governmental stability and continuity during Israel’s current ‘state of war’. This state of war has been justified by the need to retrieve the 251 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th 2023. Unfortunately, after a year and half of fighting in Gaza, which has resulted in mass civilian casualties of up to 53,000 people and allegations from the ICJ towards Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing, Israel has failed to get back 59 hostages left in Gaza, of which over 30 are believed to have died while being held prisoner.
In this context, opinion in Israel regarding the state and trajectory of their country is more pessimistic than it has ever been in recent memory. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, only 40% of Israelis were optimistic about the future of democratic rule in Israel, a 2% improvement from March when only 38% of people were optimistic. The pessimistic attitudes and beliefs extend to beyond the future of Israel as a democratic state; only 31% of Israelis are optimistic about the economic future of the country, which is understandable as Israel calls upon tens of thousands of reservists after nearly two years of sustained military operations against up to three of their neighbours.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, right-wing Israelis, who are better represented by the Israeli government and its policies, are more optimistic than leftist or centrist Israelis. Unfortunately for Netanyahu, only 51% of right-wing Israelis believe that Israel’s future as a democratic state is safe, only 22% of centrist Israelis believe the same. It is clear that Netanyahu has lost the belief of the average Israeli that he can improve the domestic situation in Israel.
(The Israel Democracy Institute. (2025). https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59206)
Israelis are not optimistic about the hostage crisis
The war in Gaza has also been received with pessimism by the Israeli public. The Israel Democracy Institute’s Israeli Voice Index on the 29th April showed that only 36% of people are optimistic about the chances for a successful negotiation or operation to retrieve all the hostages. Instead most Israelis are pessimistic about their chances of getting the hostages back in a timely manner, as a reminder, the entire point of the conflict in Gaza has been to retrieve the hostages and to disarm the military arm of Hamas. This still has not been achieved as ambushes still occur with the IDF death toll reaching 854 troops.
We know that many Israelis have turned against continuing operations in Gaza. Major protests against the war in Gaza are common, with a major anti-war protest occurring in Tel-Aviv on the 24th April against the human cost of the war in Gaza. The protest included calls against the ongoing famine in Gaza, which has been exacerbated by Israeli interference with aid convoys, including blocking their passage and slowing down the process to enter the Strip.
This is even clear with the resignation of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was fired from the government in November 2024 after disagreements over orthodox conscription policies and said that the war had lost its focus on rescuing the hostages. Gallant claimed that the military operations in the Strip had begun to free the hostages and that the Netanyahu government had forgotten its ‘moral obligation’ to free the hostages first and foremost.
With increasing sentiment against the war in Gaza based on the cost to Palestinians as well as the already-present discontent with regards to the lack of a deal with the hostages, as well as continuing international pressure and disapproval towards Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the Netanyahu administration will find little support for continued operations outside of right-wing Israelis and the Trump administration.
Trump’s split with Israel
The major foreign policy news recently though has been the recent split between the Trump and Netanyahu Administrations towards Iran and their nuclear program. In 2015 the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) was signed under the Obama Administration along with the EU. in 2018 under Trump’s first government, he pulled out of the agreement unilaterally and embarked on his own project to force Iran to give up their program. The Netanyahu administration at the time was in favour of the hardline ‘maximum pressure’ plan.
Now though, the Trump Administration has been more conciliatory towards Iran. keeping in line with Trump’s obsession with ‘deals’, believing that he can end the war in Ukraine with ‘deals’, or that his tariff policy will drag every affected nation into american-preferential trade deals, Trump has announced that he can work with the Iranians in terms of their nuclear program. This is a marked departure from the earlier months of the Trump administration as well as his campaign promises. Trump spent his campaign railing against the Biden and Obama administrations for their weakness towards the Iranian nuclear program and he even suggested a bombing campaign against their facilities.
Recently Trump has refrained from backing a bombing campaign, something Netanyahu has claimed is necessary to secure Israel’s security. Just last week, the Trump Administration paused its campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen; a decision Netanyahu allegedly was blindsided and enraged about.
In this tense situation where Israel finds itself at odds with its most important ally, the fear is that Netanyahu will act unilaterally akin to the tit-for-tat strikes on Iran in April and October 2024.
Concerningly Israeli opinion is relatively split on the prospect of striking Iran unilaterally, this time even without the justification of responding to Iranian drone attacks on Israel. According to the same poll as above, 45% of respondents agreed that Israel should strike Iranian military and nuclear facilities even when missing American support and diplomatic backing. In opposition only 41% of Israelis disagree with the motion.
(The Israel Democracy Institute. (2025). https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59206)
Israel doesn’t need more conflicts
It’s clear that Israel is overstretched. Since October 7th 2023 Israel has entered conflicts with three of its neighbors; the continuing war in Gaza, an assault into southern Lebanon to fight Hezbollah and a continuing occupation of southern Syria in the aftermath of the Hayat-Al Sham’s takeover.
Align with the ground operations, Israel has conducted airstrikes against Iraq, Iran and Yemen. Israel does not need more conflict when it is calling up more reservists, starting a new offensive in Gaza and would need to divert even more resources from the normal spending a government would do on social services and a welfare state towards the defence industry and the military to keep up an occupation of an area with over two million people.
Israel, even if its people seem ambivalent towards an expansion of conflict, should not expand their operations after nearly two years of nonstop conflict and fighting in Gaza as well intermittent combat in every country they border except Egypt and Jordan.
