After two-plus years of a prolonged war, the current campaign against Iran feels to many like the confrontation toward which everything has been building, rather than just another round of escalation.
This may explain why a new survey by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) finds overwhelming support for the American-Israeli campaign against Iran – more than 80% of Israelis support the operation.
At first glance, this number suggests something close to unconditional public support. Support for the campaign extends across the political spectrum, though more strongly among coalition voters.
It is also accompanied by high trust in the security establishment: roughly 80% express high trust in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), and over 85% in the Air Force and Home Front Command. Israelis are willing to rally when they believe the military objective is serious, necessary, and professionally managed.
But a closer look at the recent data reveals a more nuanced picture. While 63% say the campaign should continue until the Iranian regime falls, only 22% think that is actually the most likely outcome. A similar pattern appears in assessments of Iran’s nuclear program: only 17% believe it will be fully dismantled. Meanwhile, 82% think the campaign will last no more than a month, and 62% think the Israeli home front will be willing to live under wartime conditions for up to a month at most.
This is the paradox at the heart of current Israeli opinion. The public supports maximalist war aims far more than it believes they can be achieved, and it believes in the campaign more than it is prepared to absorb a prolonged war.
This is not hypocrisy: It is what a wartime rally-around-the-flag effect looks like in a society that is exhausted, traumatized, and desperate for decisive closure after more than two years.
This public mood is easy to misunderstand, especially from outside Israel. It is tempting to read these numbers as proof of a society drifting steadily toward escalation. I read them differently. INSS surveys consistently show that most Israelis view Iran not as one arena among many, but as the central source of the regional war that has been consuming the country since October 7.
In that sense, support for the current campaign reflects a deeply rooted strategic intuition: if there is a chance to weaken the center of the axis, a majority of the public believes Israel must take it.
But wanting to continue the campaign until regime change is not the same as having a plausible theory of how regime change will happen, what it would require, or what Israel would need to endure to make it possible. Here the survey data is striking precisely because it captures both emotions at once: confidence and doubt, resolve and fragility.
Belief that the campaign against Iran will be short
One of the clearest signs of this fragility is the time horizon. Public support is broad, but it is implicitly conditioned on the belief that the campaign will be relatively short. Only 10% think it will last longer than a month. That is not the mindset of a public preparing itself for an open-ended war of attrition, but of a public that wants a sharp and meaningful blow, not an endless new front.
That distinction matters enormously. Israelis broadly agree that this war is justified, yet they still ask, even if only implicitly, whether it is bearable. Israelis ask how long daily life can remain suspended, how many reserve call-ups families can absorb, how many nights children can sleep in the shelter, how much uncertainty businesses can survive, and how long a shaken home front can function on adrenaline and solidarity alone. The survey suggests that on these questions, the Israeli public is far less maximalist than its aspirations for regime change might imply.
The Israeli public has already lived through October 7, the hostage trauma, repeated reserve duty, missile attacks, evacuations, social polarization, and a prolonged crisis of trust in political leadership. Even now, 82% say they are worried about social tensions inside Israel, a level of concern higher than concern about external threats. The share of Israelis reporting a high sense of personal security also fell with the start of the operation, from an already low 30% the week before the campaign to 26% now.
That is why the gap between aspiration and expectation matters. If policymakers treat current support as a blank check, they will misread the public. The same citizens who say they support carrying the campaign through to regime collapse may be far less willing to accept the costs of a long war if that dramatic conclusion does not materialize quickly.
The current consensus may slowly erode. Public endorsement may first shift into impatience, then into disappointment, then into anger at leaders who promised more than reality could deliver. We have already seen versions of this dynamic on the Gaza front.
The lesson is not that Israel should avoid hard campaigns because public patience has limits. The public has demonstrated extraordinary endurance since October 7. The lesson is that leaders must be honest about the difference between strategic success and fantasy.
If the realistic goal is to significantly degrade Iran’s nuclear project, damage its missile infrastructure, and alter the regional balance of power, then that case should be made clearly. If regime collapse is being invoked mainly as an emotional horizon rather than an operationally attainable objective, the public deserves honesty about that, too.
Wars can begin with resolve and still end in disillusionment when leaders fail to align goals, probabilities, and public sacrifice.
The new INSS survey suggests that Israelis are rallying not because they have fully resolved these tensions, but because after such a long war, they urgently want to believe that this confrontation might finally produce strategic clarity. That belief is real, and so is the support. But neither should be mistaken for a coherent public understanding of the war’s endgame – or for unlimited patience.
The writer is a Neubauer Research Associate at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and a PhD candidate in International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.