--- title: Netanyahu's Collapsing Support description: Israeli voters are furious with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Oct. 7 attack and his leadership since. But he fights on. canonical: https://time.com/6565092/benjamin-netanyahus-collapsing-support/ author: Dahlia Scheindlin article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-01-24T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T16:59:52.859Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Netanyahu's Collapsing Support og:description: Israeli voters are furious with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Oct. 7 attack and his leadership since. But he fights on. og:url: https://time.com/6565092/benjamin-netanyahus-collapsing-support/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt023853e83d34b841/698a441fe6e84a4ed72b0e63/GettyImages-1831471833.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Funeral Held For Major Gal Eisenkot, IDF Soldier And Son Of Cabinet Minister og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Netanyahu's Collapsing Support twitter:description: Israeli voters are furious with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Oct. 7 attack and his leadership since. But he fights on. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt023853e83d34b841/698a441fe6e84a4ed72b0e63/GettyImages-1831471833.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Netanyahu's Collapsing Support > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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In the Loop is TIME's AI newsletter, built on original reporting and access to the people building and governing AI. It publishes Tuesdays and Fridays and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes TIME's In the Loop? Harry Booth, a tech reporter at TIME, writes In the Loop. #### Is In the Loop free? Yes. In the Loop is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Dahlia Scheindlin](https://time.com/author/dahlia-scheindlin/) ## Dahlia Scheindlin Jan 24, 2024 10:00 AM UTC  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the funeral for First Sergeant Major Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25 years old, at the Herzliya cemetery on December 8, 2023 in Herzliya, Israel. The Israel Defense Forces said the 25-year-old major, son of the cabinet minister and former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, died on Thursday in Gaza. Over two months have passed since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that sparked a retaliatory ground and air campaign by Israel in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the funeral for First Sergeant Major Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25 years old, at the Herzliya cemetery on December 8, 2023 in Herzliya, Israel. The Israel Defense Forces said the 25-year-old major, son of the cabinet minister and former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, died on Thursday in Gaza. Over two months have passed since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that sparked a retaliatory ground and air campaign by Israel in Gaza. Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images by [Dahlia Scheindlin](https://time.com/author/dahlia-scheindlin/) ## Dahlia Scheindlin Jan 24, 2024 10:00 AM UTC Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked angry. He railed in a Jan. 18 [press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHiier2YmIM) against Israel’s enemies, the media, and critics of his leadership of the war against Hamas. He was particularly defiant about reports that the international community, including [Western](https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/effort-create-far-reaching-us-saudi-israeli-pact-end-war-rcna134396) and [Arab countries](https://www.ft.com/content/11890426-0250-4a3c-ba48-d8523924eb9c), is advancing a comprehensive plan to end the war based on a long-term horizon for a Palestinian state and political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The [conflict is](https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-vows-no-palestinian-state-attacks-israeli-media-denies-blindsiding-gallant/) “not about the absence of a state, a Palestinian state,” he practically snarled, “but rather about the existence of a state, a Jewish state.” Netanyahu sounded almost desperate. No matter what has happened on the ground since Hamas’ blood-drenched attack of October 7, the Israeli public has so far shown no indication of forgiving him. Most countries tend to rally behind their leadership during wartime. But from the first Israeli polls in October to the present, attitudes towards Netanyahu have been abysmal. Before October 7, Israelis were angry with the ultra-nationalist, right-wing government (elected not even one year earlier), for its plans to crush the independence of the Israeli judiciary. With colossal weekly demonstrations all year, strikes and massive public disruptions, poll after poll showed that the government had lost its parliamentary majority. By September, Netanyahu’s coalition was regularly getting just [52-54 seats in surveys](https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politi/2023-09-26/ty-article/.premium/0000018a-d29d-d490-adca-dbdffe3b0003), compared to 64 in the elections of late 2022 (out of 120 in Israel’s parliament). After the Hamas attack, the bottom fell out. Most polls show the coalition scoring in the mid-40 seat range, including the regular tracking survey for Maariv newspaper published Jan. 19 , conducted by the pollster Menachem Lazar. In that survey, the original coalition got 44 seats and Likud, Netanyahu’s party just 16, half of the 32 it won in the last election. It’s the second week in a row that Likud has scored so low, but all surveys show the party with just 17-20 seats. **_Read More:_** [**_My Call to Action for the Israeli Hostages_**](https://time.com/6564827/israeli-hostages-call-to-action-davos-encounter/) But people aren’t punishing just the coalition or just Likud. Israelis are furious at Netanyahu personally. When asked which leader is more suitable to be prime minister, the long unrivalled polling king has slid to a distant second place. In mid-November, 41 percent chose Benny Gantz in [a Maariv poll](https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-1052853), a former military Chief of Staff who became an emergency partner in the war cabinet. The 25 percent for Netanyahu was his lowest rating to date. Recently Netanyahu has recovered slightly, [to 31 percent](https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-1069268)– but 50 percent now view Gantz as more suitable to lead. In all polls, such as [Israel’s Channel 13](https://13tv.co.il/item/news/politics/politics/new-poll-903840583/) in December or any others who ask the question, over 70 percent of Israelis want Netanyahu to resign – between one-quarter and 30 percent want him to go right now, even during the war. Why? The Israeli public has reached the same conclusion as almost every political observer about the prime minister. From late October through to mid-January, weekly [surveys among repeat respondents by the Agam Institute](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/nim.nir/viz/GazaWarLiveOmnibus-IsraeliJews/Omnibus-Agam) at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University show that a majority, about 56 percent of Jewish Israelis, think Netanyahu is bringing his personal political consideration into his conduct of the war. (If Arab citizens of Israel had been asked, the average would be higher.) And in a striking finding, the Agam Institute found that the portion of people who hold Netanyahu _solely_ responsible for the disaster of October 7th actually doubled, from 17 to 35 percent among Jewish Israelis. Combined with those who hold him largely responsible, nearly three-quarters see him as the culprit for Israel’s failures that day. If the surveys prove out, Israel’s longest serving prime minister will exit office on his own petard. Historically, when Netanyahu feels under the gun, he seizes on the same themes Israel is under existential threat; Israel will be annihilated if opponents have their way (whether political competitors in elections, or the U. S. President seeking a two-state solution); and his favorite theme; that he alone can prevent the certain destruction The Manichean threat has kept in power for the better part of 15 consecutive years. Politically eulogized more times than commentators can count ([including here, by me](https://time.com/6072010/benjamin-netanyahu-legacy-israel/)), the man always pulls a political Houdini-escape act to get re-elected despite criminal indictments for corruption and any number of lesser scandals. But the threat he warned that only he could prevent was realized, and on his watch. “This time,” say those who predict his downfall, “there’s October 7.” There’s also the aftermath. A traumatized public felt abandoned by a government unprepared for the emergency. In recent weeks, anti-government demonstrations have even returned to Tel Aviv, a growing sideshow to the larger protests demanding that the government do more to get Israel’s hostages released. Even Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet minister, Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff (and newly-bereaved father to a fallen soldier), [criticized Netanyahu’s promises](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/israeli-minister-says-only-ceasefire-can-free-hostages-as-cabinet-rift-deepens) to release hostages through ongoing fighting as an illusion. Netanyahu seems to be losing the last remnants of his credibility. And yet, elections are nowhere in sight. If they turn out to be a year or more away, today’s polls will be out of date. By then, October 7 may seem to Israelis less of a threat than the words “Palestinian state,” a phrase that, to some Israelis, carries the threat of another October 7, but worse. After his belligerent words, Netanyahu [may have told Biden](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/19/politics/joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu-palestinian-state/index.html) that he’s not foreclosing the idea of a Palestinian state entirely. But to Israelis, he will insist that preventing one is a matter of survival. For the many Israelis who feel this way, “existential threat” is not just Netanyahu’s campaign posture; it’s simply how they view reality. If no one in Israel makes the opposite case – that the lack of Palestinian freedom, the boot of Israeli occupation on their neck for decades nurtures ongoing cycles of violence forever, Netanyahu might be more convincing than his opponents would like to believe. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6565092/benjamin-netanyahus-collapsing-support/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6565092/benjamin-netanyahus-collapsing-support/"},"headline":"Netanyahu's Collapsing Support","datePublished":"2024-01-24T10:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T16:59:52.859Z","description":"Israeli voters are furious with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Oct. 7 attack and his leadership since. 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