Most Israelis oppose Gallant’s dismissal – but coalition voters seem to support Netanyahu’s move, recent polls show

Most Israelis oppose the dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a series of polls conducted after the controversial decision. However, the same polls show that Netanyahu’s Likud party continues to gather the most votes.

In all polls, just over half of the respondents said they opposed Gallant’s dismissal or thought it unjustified.

According to a local i24 news poll, 52% said they thought it was unjustified, while 32% said they thought firing Gallant was justified.

Around half of respondents also told i24 they don’t trust Netanyahu’s explanation for why Gallant was fired. About 49% said they did not believe him, instead being convinced he wanted to fire Gallant to pass an IDF draft law and stabilize the coalition, amid Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) threats to exit the government.

Right-leaning Channel 14 news found that 53% of respondents said they opposed Netanyahu’s decision, while 45% were in favor. Among coalition voters, however, 80% supported Netanyahu and only 17% opposed him.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan News also found that 52% opposed Gallant’s dismissal, with 27% supporting it. A similar proportion (55%) said that the move harms Israel's security, against 23% who said that the move contributes to security.

According to Kan, the respondents are skeptical about the motivation for Netanyahu’s decisions.

About 56% of those surveyed said that the prime minister’s main consideration is the stability of the coalition, while only 27% thought that the security of the country was his main motivation.

Left-leaning Channel 12 said 55% opposed the dismissal, with 44% even expressing strong opposition.

Approximately 32% said they supported the dismissal. Of the supporters, 58% identified themselves as coalition voters, while 87% of the opposing party said they voted for opposition parties.

The dramatic decision caused large-scale – but not massive – demonstrations across the country and had immediate effects on the overall election polls.

Despite Netanyahu’s apparently unpopular decision, there were barely and discernible effects on the Likud Party’s support, indicating most of its voters supported the move.

Channel 14, whose polls tend to give Netanyahu's Likud party markedly more seats than the polls of the other, more left-leaning channels, said if elections were held today, Netanyahu’s party would receive 33 seats.

Second place would be Gantz’s National Unity with 16 seats, before Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu with 14 seats. Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party came in at a disappointing 6th place in the poll, with only 8 prospective seats.

While their surveys gave the Likud much fewer seats, polls conducted by Kan and Channel 12 agreed that Likud would win the elections with 24 and 25 mandates, respectively.

Second place went to National Unity with 21 and 20 seats, respectively.

Kan placed Yisrael Beytenu in third place with 15, while Channel 12 gave third place to Yesh Atid with 15 seats.

Another notable outcome of the polls was the strong performance of Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats party, which received between 10 and 11 seats in all polls.

Kan also found that a new party founded by Naftali Bennett would become the second largest party with 21 seats, taking four mandates from the current coalition.