Less than half of Israel’s public trusts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an Israel Democracy Institute poll released Wednesday.
According to the poll, which was conducted during Operation Rising Lion, the official with the highest rating among Jewish Israelis was IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, while the official most trusted in Arab Israelis was Mossad Director David Barnea.
Overall, the public figure with the lowest level of public trust was Transportation Minister Miri Regev, with 20%. In the Arab community, the public official with the lowest trust level was Netanyahu, with just 10%.
Defense and rescue agencies
In terms of defense and rescue agencies, Israel’s Fire and Rescue services had a near-perfect rating of 97% among Jewish Israelis, with 92% of Israelis reporting trust in the organisation overall.
The IDF’s Home Front Command also had a high level of trust, with 89% of Israelis responding positively to the unit. The boy with the lowest trust rating was Israel Police, with only 22% of Arab Israelis reporting Trust in the institution, and 50% overall.
While younger Israelis showed slightly less trust in the agencies than older age groups, the differences never exceeded 10 percentage points.
Israel's media outlets
The lowest trust levels recorded in the survey were regarding Israel’s media outlets, with Arab Israelis consistently ranking lower than Jewish Israelis.
The channels with the highest trust rating by Jews and Arabs separately, as well as the overall score, were those operated by the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan), with Channel 14 scoring the lowest.
There was no significant difference when the responses were broken down by gender, with the exception of Channel 14, which has greater levels of trust among Jewish men than Jewish women.