Israel Beyond Netanyahu
By the IRANation Research Desk
A Study of Political Structure, Public Opinion, and Institutional Continuity
Public criticism of Israeli policy is increasingly concentrated on Benjamin Netanyahu. This distinction is politically important. Netanyahu is a specific political actor with a particular coalition, record and strategy, and Israeli opposition to him is substantial.
But it raises a separate analytical question:
How much of Israel’s current approach toward Palestinians can be explained by Netanyahu personally, and how much reflects political, institutional and social patterns that could persist after him?
This article examines Israel independently of its current prime minister through four sets of evidence: its constitutional framework, wartime public opinion, institutional trust, and ideological language.
The question is whether replacing Netanyahu, by itself, would remove the political conditions underlying current policy.
1. The constitutional framework predates Netanyahus current government
Israel has no single codified constitution; its Basic Laws form the core of its constitutional framework.
The 2018 Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People states that:
“The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.”
The law also declares:
“The State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value.”
These principles are therefore not simply statements by Netanyahu. They are embedded in a Basic Law enacted by the Knesset.
This distinction matters analytically. A change of prime minister does not automatically alter the constitutional framework within which questions of national identity, settlement and political equality are contested.
2. Opposition to Netanyahu does not necessarily imply opposition to the conduct of the war
Survey data from 2025 reveal a substantial gap between attitudes toward Netanyahu personally and attitudes toward the military.
In May 2025, the Institute for National Security Studies reported that 66% of Jewish Israeli respondents had little or no trust in Netanyahu.
In the same survey, however, 88% expressed high trust in the Israel Defense Forces.
That gap is important.
It indicates that dissatisfaction with Netanyahu cannot automatically be interpreted as rejection of the institutions implementing Israeli military policy.
A population may distrust a prime minister while maintaining strong confidence in the military establishment.
3. Palestinian civilian suffering received limited weight in wartime public opinion
The Israel Democracy Institute asked respondents in May–June 2025 how much weight Israel should give to the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population when planning military operations in Gaza.
Among Jewish respondents, 76.5% said little or no weight should be given to Palestinian civilian suffering.
Approximately two-thirds also opposed increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
A separate INSS survey in July 2025 found that only 24% of Jewish respondents expressed concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
At the same time, 92.5% regarded the IDF as a moral army.
These findings do not show that Jewish Israelis are indifferent to every form of Palestinian suffering, nor do they tell us how individual respondents understood each survey question.
They do show that, during this period, low concern for Gaza’s humanitarian conditions could coexist with very high confidence in the moral conduct of the Israeli military.
That combination cannot be explained by Netanyahu alone.
4. The issue extends from wartime tactics to political equality
The July 2025 INSS survey also asked whether Jews and Palestinians could live together in the same state with full civil equality.
Among Jewish respondents, 81% said they did not believe this was possible.
Only 16% believed that it was.
This is analytically different from support for a particular military operation. It concerns the perceived possibility of political coexistence under conditions of equal citizenship.
Survey data from September 2025 point in the same direction on Palestinian statehood.
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, almost three-quarters of Jewish Israelis did not recognize the Palestinian people’s right to an independent state.
Among respondents identified with the Jewish political right, only 8% recognized such a right.
These results suggest that the political divide is not limited to disagreement over Netanyahu’s management of the Gaza war.
It also concerns more fundamental questions of sovereignty, statehood and political equality.
5. Territorial preferences also extend beyond Netanyahu personally
In August 2025, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 49% of Jewish Israelis supported expanding military operations and taking and holding additional territory in Gaza.
Among respondents on the Jewish right, 61% supported renewed Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.
These attitudes matter because settlement is not merely a policy associated with one prime minister.
Jewish settlement is explicitly described as a national value in Israel’s Nation-State Basic Law, while settlement expansion has occurred under multiple Israeli governments across decades.
Netanyahu has been a major political actor in this process, but he did not originate the broader settlement project.
6. Ideological continuity: the case of Amalek
Political institutions and survey results are only part of the picture. Political language also matters.
One example is the biblical figure of Amalek.
Scholarship on Zionist and Sabra culture has documented the use of Amalek as a historical-symbolic category through which contemporary enemies, including Arabs, have sometimes been represented.
This does not mean that Zionism is reducible to this concept or that all Zionists, Israelis or Jews accept such interpretations.
It establishes that the analogy has a history beyond Netanyahu.
Its contemporary significance increased on October 28, 2023, as Israel’s ground operation in Gaza was beginning, when Netanyahu stated:
“You must remember what Amalek has done to you.”
The statement was subsequently cited by South Africa in its application before the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention.
That filing is a party’s legal argument, not a final judicial finding that Netanyahu’s statement constituted genocidal intent.
Nevertheless, the episode demonstrates how an older religious-political vocabulary can enter contemporary state rhetoric during war.
7. What Netanyahu did, and did not create
None of this makes Netanyahu politically irrelevant.
His governments have accelerated settlement expansion, pursued particular military strategies, built coalitions with increasingly hard-line religious-nationalist parties and contributed to the normalization of rhetoric that critics regard as exclusionary or eliminationist.
Leadership matters.
But analytically, several major features of the current conflict cannot be attributed to Netanyahu’s personality alone.
He did not create:
- the Israeli occupation, which began in 1967;
- the settlement project;
- the broader political debate over Palestinian statehood;
- the constitutional privileging of Jewish national self-determination established in the Nation-State Basic Law;
- the high institutional legitimacy enjoyed by the IDF;
- or the ideological traditions through which Palestinians have sometimes been framed as an existential rather than merely political adversary.
Some of these developments precede Netanyahu’s political career. Others were institutionalized with his participation but depend on constituencies much larger than one politician.
Conclusion: What happens after Netanyahu?
A post-Netanyahu government may change the style, pace or presentation of Israeli policy. It may alter coalition politics, relations with Washington, ceasefire negotiations or the conduct of particular military operations.
But the evidence reviewed here does not support the claim that Netanyahu is the principal source of the underlying problem.
The occupation predates him. The settlement project predates him. The institutional privileging of Jewish national self-determination is written into Israel’s Basic Law. Large majorities of Jewish Israelis have rejected Palestinian statehood, doubted the possibility of full civil equality, placed limited weight on Palestinian civilian suffering, and maintained overwhelming confidence in the military conducting the war.
These are not Netanyahu’s personal opinions imposed on an otherwise opposing political system. They are positions embedded, to varying degrees, in Israeli law, institutions, political movements and public opinion.
Netanyahu has radicalized these tendencies, mobilized them and given them political expression. He did not create them.
Netanyahu is not an aberration standing outside the Israeli political system. He is one of its most consequential expressions.
Sources
Knesset – Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People Full text and Knesset summary. Article 1C defines national self-determination as unique to the Jewish people; Article 7 defines Jewish settlement as a national value. https://main.knesset.gov.il/EN/News/PressReleases/Pages/Pr13978_pg.aspx
Israel Democracy Institute – Israeli Voice Index, May–June 2025 Survey data on the weight Jewish Israelis believe should be given to Palestinian civilian suffering and attitudes toward humanitarian aid to Gaza. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/59568
Institute for National Security Studies – Swords of Iron Survey, July 2025 Data on concern over Gaza’s humanitarian situation, perceptions of the IDF’s morality, and views regarding full civil equality between Israelis and Palestinians. https://inss.org.il/publication/survey-july-2025/
Israel Democracy Institute – Israeli Voice Index, August 2025 Survey data on expansion of military operations, territorial control in Gaza and support for renewed Jewish settlement. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/61601
Israel Democracy Institute – Two Years Since October 7 Survey, September 2025 Survey data on recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to an independent state. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/61845
Institute for National Security Studies – Swords of Iron Survey, May 2025 Survey data comparing trust in Benjamin Netanyahu with trust in the IDF. https://inss.org.il/publication/survey-may-2025/
International Court of Justice – South Africa v. Israel, Application Instituting Proceedings Includes South Africa’s citation of Netanyahu’s October 28, 2023 reference to Amalek. The document represents South Africa’s legal submission and should not be confused with a final finding of the Court. https://icj-cij.org/node/203394
Oz Almog – The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew, Oxford Academic Academic discussion of Zionist/Sabra cultural representations of Arabs, including the use of the Amalek motif. https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/15365/chapter/169936778
Haaretz – “Americans Don’t Have an Israel Problem. They Have a Netanyahu Problem,” July 31, 2026 The argument to which this article responds by examining institutional and public-opinion evidence independently of Netanyahu. https://haaretz.com/opinion/2026-07-31/ty-article-opinion/.premium/americans-dont-have-an-israel-problem-they-have-a-netanyahu-problem/0000019f-b509-da04-a7ff-bd0d743d0000
