MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We wanted to get perspective on Israeli public opinion more broadly from someone who knows it well. Dahlia Scheindlin is an Israeli pollster and senior columnist for the newspaper Haaretz. Dahlia, thank you so much for joining me on this consequential day.
DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Nice to be here. Thank you.
MARTIN: I wanted to ask you about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strategy - blaming his security chiefs for October 7, refusing to undertake a broader investigation, denying reporting that he was warned beforehand. How is that landing with voters?
SCHEINDLIN: Well, it's landing into an extraordinarily divided electorate, and so it's very hard to talk about the overall Israeli society when you say, how do voters think about it? His voters agree with him, and his voters have been quite stable at a minority, but a large minority. So we're talking about roughly 38- to 42- or 43% of Israelis who pretty much support Netanyahu in almost any kind of question, whether it's voting for parties of his coalition or who believe that he is most suitable to be prime minister. And so they agree with him.
They are, you know, sending around lists of his achievements, which basically mirror what Netanyahu has been saying this whole time, particularly things like getting the hostages back over the course of two years, even those who are no longer alive. And that is his voters.
But everybody else, OK, so the rest of Israeli society - we're talking over 50%, you know, who are not voting for Netanyahu, probably close to 60% - are infuriated. And, you know, like some of the people that Daniel spoke to in the south, they are in a way, collectively feeling what Daniel has spoken about. So just feeling like he is avoiding responsibility, shut down, not sympathetic or empathetic in any way to the suffering of the hostages and their families over the two years before they were all released. And, in general, just not concerned with the fate of the people themselves.
And I think that in a way, the anger is, you know, particularly - it's ironic in a way that people are angrier at their own government for being let down. I mean, of course, they're furious at Hamas, but nobody's, you know, naive about the fact that this is a conflict. And I think that, you know, the expectation of the state to protect its citizens and the government to take care of its citizens after an attack like that really is very basic, and people feel extremely - you know, on the other side, on the opposition side, quite betrayed.
MARTIN: But you've also written that this does not mean that Netanyahu will lose. Can you say more about that?
SCHEINDLIN: Yeah, that's right. Well, as I said, his base is incredibly stable. He has around that 40% mark who still support him. So first of all, you know, the coalition system makes it difficult for any party to form, you know, a coalition, you know, because they never get a majority. They have to always bring in other parties.
And the opposition parties are currently holding a majority of seats in all polls, except that the Zionist opposition parties have largely, you know, restricted themselves from forming a coalition with parties representing Arab or Palestinian citizens of Israel. So those are all within the opposition. And if the Zionist opposition parties can't get the majority of 61 that usually is needed for a government, they won't be able to form a coalition. That would allow a possibility in which Netanyahu is asked to form a coalition, even if he doesn't have a majority.
He could also - we - you know, we don't know what's going to happen at the very last stages of the campaign. He could get a surge of the undecided voters. That's also a possibility. So could the opposition. There's a lot that's up in the air right now about who will actually win.
What we do know is that the makeup of the next Knesset - the next parliament - will be very heavily right wing because it reflects where Israeli society has been going, frankly, long before October 7, and even more so after October 7.
MARTIN: That's Dahlia Scheindlin. She's an Israeli pollster. She's based in Tel Aviv. Dahlia, thank you so much for sharing these insights with us.
SCHEINDLIN: Thank you for having me.
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