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Israeli Citizens' Satisfaction with the Country's Situation: Changes Over Time
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From:
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Date Published:
5/5/2008
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Last Updated:
9/8/2009
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Category:
Parliament, The Guttman Center Surveys
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Imagine being able to go back in time and ask, at different periods, what Israeli citizens think about their country's situation. What would we discover? What was the general sense of Israel's situation in the 1990s, '80s, and 70s? Was it seen as improving over the years, or, perhaps, deteriorating?
One common tool for examining the citizen-government connection is public opinion surveys. The use of these surveys in Israel gained considerable momentum in the late 1960s. For over two decades, the Guttman Center, a pioneer in this field, together with the Smart Institute of Communication of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, conducted a fascinating public opinion project known as the Continuing Survey. The purpose of the project was to gather data over time on the public mood and on public attitudes regarding a range of issues. Launched in 1969, the survey was conducted three times annually until the project ended in 1994.
In September 1973, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, the Guttman Center's Continuing Survey included a new question that was posed to respondents each year thereafter: "What, in your opinion, is Israel's situation generally?" This question—which could be broken down into in-depth questions about Israel's politics, security, economy, and society—may be the best indicator of the enormous vacillation in public opinion over the years. Many questions on the survey drew consistent responses over time; others indicate a sense that situations have either improved or deteriorated. One recent, clear example of change is the steady decline in public trust in Israeli institutions—particularly elected bodies (Arian, Atmor and Hadar, 2007). Regarding Israel's situation generally, the survey responses indicate ascent and decline, progress and regression. The primary explanation for the assessments is the national mood that prevailed at the time of each survey. What, then, can we learn from the wealth of data and from the answers to this question, which has been included in many surveys over the years?
The answer lies in an overview of Israeli history over those same years, which I will present here in a highly condensed form. I will highlight the major events that occurred in Israel since the 1970s, together with responses to the Guttman Center survey question about satisfaction with the country's situation.
Satisfaction with Israel's Situation as Noted in the Earliest Surveys
A number of events affecting the overall sense of Israel's situation in the early 1970s are reflected in the 1973 pre-election Continuing Survey. The first point in time that best reflects the sense of false euphoria in the years following the 1967 Six Day War was May 1973—five months before the onset of the Yom Kippur War and in the midst of the election campaign for the 8th Knesset. (The war delayed the election, originally scheduled for October 30, to December 31 of that year.) Diagram 1 clearly indicates the public's overall sense of elation at the time: 61% of the survey respondents noted that Israel's general situation had improved over the previous four years, and 23% said it had remained the same. Only 12% remarked that Israel was in worse shape at the time compared with the previous few years. These results were recorded a few weeks after completion of an intricate military operation, later dubbed "Spring Youth," in which special IDF forces attacked several PLO targets in Beirut, along with some of the organization's top staff.
The Guttman Center's Continuing Survey conducted in August and September of 1973 (a few weeks before the start of the war) produced similar data, with 64% of respondents reporting that Israel's overall situation was "good" or "very good." This was the highest rating ever recorded for this question in the survey. Only 7% of respondents rated Israel's situation as "not good" or "not at all good "—producing a gap of 57 percentage points between the two sets of respondents. It is noteworthy that this generally positive outlook owes mainly to Israel's security situation at the time. On September 13, 1973, the Israeli Air Force downed 13 Syrian planes in aerial battles; Israel lost only one plane, whose pilot survived and was brought safely home. The incident contributed to the jubilant spirit in the country at the time.
The Yom Kippur War (October 6-24, 1973) led to a steep decline in overall impressions of Israel's situation, and the previously recorded high figure was never again reached (other than at the time of Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel). Ratings of the country's situation since then have fluctuated in accordance with various events and developments in defense, politics, the economy, and society. Diagram 1 indicates public feelings in mid-November 1973, two weeks after the end of the Yom Kippur War, just after the Israeli government decided to establish a committee to investigate events leading up to the war and occurring in its first few days. The Continuing Survey recorded a significant drop in responses, with 24% noting that Israel's situation was "good" or "very good" and 23% rating it as "not good" or "not at all good." (52% reported that the situation was "not very good.") The gap in ratings that characterized earlier surveys had disappeared.
Diagram 1: Satisfaction with Israel's Situation as Reported by the Continuing Survey, 1973-1979
 click here to view Diagram 1 (PDF)
*The question asked in the pre-election survey of May 1973 was: "In comparing the country's situation now with what it was four years ago, would you say that the situation now is better, the same, or worse?"
The Continuing Survey of February 1974 showed a further decrease in ratings, with 16% of respondents noting that Israel's situation was "good" or "very good," and another 33% describing the situation as "not good" or "not at all good." Interestingly, the gap between the two opinions at this point in time was 17 percentage points, a significant increase over its previous size. It was at this point in history that the voice of protest movements, led by Motti Ashkenaki, grew louder. They demanded that Prime Minister Golda Meir and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan resign because of their failed handling of the war. At the same time, the Agranat Commission was in the process of conducting its investigation. At the start of September 1975, when Israel signed an interim agreement with Egypt (with Henry Kissinger's mediation), ratings improved, with 20% of respondents noting that Israel's situation was "good" or "very good." The gap between the positive and negative responses at this point narrowed to 5 percentage points.
The largest positive percentage since the Yom Kippur War was recorded by the Continuing Survey in January 1978, a month-and-a-half after the historic visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Sadat landed in Israel on November 19, 1977 and paved the way for the peace process between the two nations, which was capped by the signing of the Camp David agreement. The following January, 49% of the survey respondents rated Israel's overall situation as "good" or "very good," and only 9% "not good" or "not at all good" (with a gap of 40 percentage points between the two). Within a short time, however, the previously established pattern returned: in June 1978, when IDF forces were withdrawing from southern Lebanon at the end of the Litani operation (March-June 1978), 23% of the responses were "good" or "very good," while 33% were "not good" or "not at all good."
A burst of optimism was evident in the April 1979 survey, close on the heels of the March 26 signing of the peace treaty with Egypt on the White House lawn. At that time, 39% of respondents judged Israel's situation to be "good" or "very good," and 17% thought it to be "not good" or "not at all good." The ratings were far more positive than in previous years. On March 31 of that year, Israel won the Eurovision song contest, which took place at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem. The winning song, "Hallelujah," sung by Gali Atari, symbolized, perhaps, the sense of tranquility at the time, which, as it turned out, was short-lived.
Satisfaction with Israel's Situation in the 1980s and early 1990s
From the final months of 1979 until January 1981, assessments of Israel's overall situation declined, and the positive ratings amounted only to a very small 15% (Levi, 1992: 41). The reasons, in large part, were economic tension and the roaring inflation, which reached its highest level (131%) in 1980. Between January 1981 and November 1982, the positive percentages increased, most likely as a result of the IDF's "Peace in the Galilee" operation that began on June 4, 1982 with an invasion into Lebanon. The Continuing Survey conducted in July 1982, when IDF forces were deployed in Lebanon and besieging Beirut, highlights the widespread public support for the war and the belief that it would bring, if not an end to Palestinian hostility, at least its removal from Israel's borders. At that time, 40% of respondents believed that Israel's situation generally was "good" or "very good," and 21% "not good" or "not at all good."
This upward trend was halted by the events that took place on September 16, 1982 at Sabra and Shatila. The December 1982 Continuing Survey was conducted a month after the establishment of a government commission to investigate these events (the Cohen Commission, on November 1) and also about a month after the first disaster in Tyre (on November 11) in which 75 IDF soldiers were killed. A steep decline was evident in satisfaction with Israel's situation in that survey: 17% felt that Israel's situation at the time was "good" or "very good," and 40% sensed it was "not good" or "not at all good" (with a gap of 23 percentage points between the two).
In late August 1983, Prime Minister Menahem Begin told the nation, "I cannot go on," and proceeded to announce his resignation. In the November 1983 Continuing Survey that year, satisfaction shrank even further: 11% referred to Israel's overall situation as "good" or "very good," and 50% believed it to be "not good" or "not at all good" (a gap of 39 percentage points). These results take on added meaning since they are linked in time to the second Tyre disaster (on November 4, 1983) in which 60 IDF soldiers were killed and some 30 injured.
Diagram 2: Satisfaction with Israel's Situation as Reported by the Continuing Survey, 1994-1980
click here to view Diagram 2 (PDF)
In the years that followed, satisfaction with the country's situation remained low, with positive ratings not rising above 15%. Two influential factors at the time were the nation's economic crisis and the continuing war in Lebanon. However, the June 1986 Continuing Survey recorded a significantly more positive assessment of the situation: 30% referred to it as "very good," and 28% as "not good" or "not at all good." The upward rise was a response to the gradual IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and deployment along the security zone (completed in June 1985), as well as to initiation of an economic recovery plan in July of that year.
Since mid-1986, satisfaction levels have once again headed downward, reaching a particularly low point in 1989. One of the most clearly remembered events of 1987 was the outbreak of the first Intifada in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip on December 8. In the Continuing Survey of February 1988, the percentage of respondents who believed that Israel's situation was "good" or "very good" dropped to 20%, while 39% said the situation was "not good" or "not at all good." Although Yitzhak Rabin, Defense Minister at the time, declared that "We will bring order here, even if it hurts" (headline in Yedioth Ahronot, December 22, 1987), the following months witnessed a gradual decline in satisfaction with Israel's situation. In the May 1989 survey, only 9% of respondents noted that the situation was "good" or "very good" and 47% "not good" or "not at all good" (a gap of 38%). In the April 1990 survey, there was discernible dissatisfaction among respondents. There were vocal protests at the time over the "stinking trick" (as dubbed by Rabin)—the March 15 breakup of the unity government. A protest rally was organized in Malchei Yisrael Square to call for electoral reform, under the banner, "We've had it with corruption." In that survey, 10% of respondents viewed the country's situation as "good" or "very good" and 52% as "not good" or "not at all good" (a gap of 42 percentage points).
The most salient event of 1991 was the first Gulf War in which the Israeli home front was hit by Iraqi scud missiles. The war ended on February 28. In the next survey, conducted a few months later in May 1991, 19% of respondents rated Israel's situation as "good" or "very good," and 39% believed it to be "not good" or "not at all good" (a gap of 20 percentage points). The war had a significant impact on the Israeli-Arab conflict, leading to the peace talks at the Madrid summit in November of that year, and later to the Oslo process, which was finalized with an agreement in principle between Israeli and the PLO and the historic handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on September 13, 1993. The Guttman Center's final Continuing Survey, conducted in November 1994, clearly indicates a turnabout in public opinion regarding Israel's overall situation: 31% of respondents judged it to be "good" or "very good" and 29% "not good" or "not good at all."
Recent Satisfaction with Israel's Situation
Although the Guttman Center's Continuing Survey ended in 1994, the question of satisfaction with Israel's situation has since been addressed by several other public opinion surveys. The most prominent of them are the National Security Survey of the Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies, which was conducted between 1995 and 2005 (Arian, 1999; Arian, 2003), and the Israeli Democracy Index conducted annually since 2003 by the Guttman Center of the Israeli Democracy Institute (Arian, Nahmias, Navot, and Shani, 2003).
It is interesting to note in Diagram 3 that 1997 was most optimistic year of the decade that followed from the point of view of the Israeli public. That year, 32% of respondents noted that the country's situation was "good" or "very good," and 23% claimed it was "not good" or "not at all good." These percentages, more or less, characterized the final years of the 1990s. The year with the most definitive downward trend was 2002, when 80% of respondents remarked that Israel's situation was "not good" or "not good at all." That year, only 4% believed that the situation was "good" or "very good." This was the peak year for the terrorist attacks that began with the second Intifada (the Al-Aksa Intifada, as referred to by Palestinians, which was sparked by the events of September 2000). The diagram shows that in the following years as well, less then 15% of the public rated Israel's situation as "good" or "very good," while over half were more pessimistic and assigned ratings of "not good" or "not good at all."
In February 2006, one month before elections for the 17th Knesset, the satisfaction level rose, with 27% of respondents judging Israel's situation as "good" or "very good," as opposed to 18% in 2005. The Second Lebanon War, however (July 12 to August 14, 2006), had a markedly negative effect on public feelings. In February 2007, 50% of respondents to the Israeli Democracy Index survey rated Israel's situation as "not good" or "not good at all," as opposed to 32% who felt the same in 2006. On the other hand, only 15% of respondents in 2007 judged Israel's situation to be "good" or "very good" (Arian, Atmor, and Hadar, 2007).
Diagram 3: Satisfaction with Israel's Situation
The National Security Survey and Democracy Index
click here to view Diagram 3 (PDF)
Whatever can be learned from this plentiful data is difficult to assess or put into numbers. It may be that they provide no more than a "temperature reading" of the mood in the country on a particular day or month, based on a national agenda filled with weighty events. But going beyond the figures themselves, and on a note of (cautious) optimism, it is worth noting, again, that the satisfaction levels fluctuate constantly over the years. At times, the ratings take a downward turn, and at other times satisfaction levels rise, depending on events taking place in the country. The figures can best be seen to reflect the changing mood of the public, which is determined by important milestones in Israeli history.
*Click here to view bibliography and sources (Hebrew)
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