Israeli Views on the Peace Process

Tracking Israeli public opinion on the peace process is complicated by the variety of questions pollsters use. Support for a general two-state concept, preference among a list of possible political outcomes, willingness to enter negotiations, belief that negotiations would succeed, and support for a specific detailed peace package are distinct measures that produce different results even in the same survey year.[1] The Jewish Virtual Library compiles data from multiple polling organizations and explicitly cautions that sample size, question wording and order, survey timing, and broader context — including whether fieldwork is conducted during wartime — can materially affect results.[1]

The principal long-running data series include Tel Aviv University's Peace Index, initiated by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research in June 1994, which tracks a Negotiations Index combining support for talks with belief that they will produce peace.[2] The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) publishes an annual National Security Index with extensive cross-tabs by ethnicity and political orientation.[3] Pew Research Center has conducted nationally representative Israeli surveys since 2013 asking whether Israel and an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully.[4] Additional snapshots come from joint Israeli-Palestinian polls and JCPA-commissioned surveys.[5][6] Washington Institute polling summaries and Mitvim indices add further snapshots.[7][8] Because these instruments measure different things in different years with different populations, they are best read as complementary rather than as a single unbroken trend.

In the years immediately following the Oslo Accords, Israeli public opinion was cautiously supportive of the peace process while remaining sensitive to security conditions. A 1998 annual national-security poll reported that two-thirds of respondents felt the peace process had enhanced their personal sense of security, and support for continuing peace talks was broadly high, though the same report noted a rightward shift in views about the substance of those talks.[9] Notably, Israeli opinion moved during the year: at its beginning, an absolute majority of Jewish Israelis believed the process had stalled; by year's end, more than half of the public supported a permanent agreement with the Palestinians that would recognize a Palestinian state and involve territorial withdrawal. Roughly 70% of Israelis also supported the Wye River Memorandum, though support was lower among more religious respondents.[10]

A Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies survey from roughly the same period — based on interviews with 1,216 people drawn from a representative sample of Israel's Jewish population — found that 58% supported the Oslo process. That survey, conducted between mid-April and mid-May before the Dolphinarium bombing and after eight months of violent confrontation, also found 74% supporting complete separation from the Palestinians, 62% thinking such separation was achievable, and 57% supporting agreement to a Palestinian state as part of a peace deal. At the same time, more than 60% opposed an agreement involving concessions on the scale discussed at the end of the Barak government and reflected in President Clinton's bridging document.[11]

A poll conducted shortly after the collapse of the 2000 Camp David summit found that 66% of Israelis continued to support the peace process, even as 29% opposed further talks with the Palestinians.[12] Yet the summit's failure and the outbreak of the second intifada that followed began to reshape Israeli opinion significantly. A Congressional Research Service account describes Israeli camps as increasingly polarized, with the right growing more opposed to relinquishing control over Jerusalem and other territories or accepting Palestinian refugee claims.[12]

The period of violent confrontation during the second intifada deepened public wariness of diplomatic compromise. Israeli public opinion grew skeptical of territorial concessions, particularly as attacks inside Israel from the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza intensified.[13] Growth of settlements in these areas and East Jerusalem made the prospect of separating Israeli and Palestinian populations more complicated and politically charged.[13]

A 2003 Jaffee Center survey of 1,103 adult Jewish Israelis found that 59% supported a Palestinian state within a peace agreement, up from 49% in 2002. That same survey found 59% willing to give up settlements other than the major blocs, and 43% willing to give up Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem as part of a peace deal. On process, 52% thought the parties had to work out terms themselves rather than having a third party impose a solution, and 40% believed the Road Map would end the conflict.[14] A 2005 GeoCartography survey found an apparent tension: 58% of respondents did not believe a political arrangement could be reached in roughly two years and produce calm, yet 63% said coordination and agreement with the Palestinians were necessary to achieve calm, compared with only 25% who thought Israel could achieve it unilaterally. The same survey found that 45% said their political views had changed in recent years, with 29% becoming more pessimistic about peace prospects and 16% more optimistic.[15]

Support for a two-state arrangement remained broadly stable at around 70% of the Israeli public overall — including Arab citizens — from 2003 to approximately 2013, persisting through security crises and across governments of varying political composition.[3]

A recurring coexistence question offers a complementary benchmark. In 2013, 50% of Israelis answered that a way could be found for Israel and an independent Palestinian state to coexist peacefully.[4] A University of Haifa question tracking agreement with the principle of "two states for two peoples" as a framework for resolving the conflict found that agreement among Israeli Jews fell from 71% in 2003 to 60% in 2015, and among Israeli Arabs from 89% to 71% over the same period — suggesting some erosion even before the more dramatic declines that followed.[16]

U.S.-mediated negotiation rounds in 2007–2008 and again in 2013–2014 both ended without agreements, contributing to a mood of stagnation.[13] A Jewish-only series on support for "two states for two peoples" records 29% in 2006, 36% in 2009, 31% in 2012, and 40% in 2015.[1]

By 2015, 43% of Israeli Jews thought Israel and an independent Palestinian state could coexist peacefully, while 45% said it was not possible.[16] The 2016 joint Palestinian-Israeli Pulse poll, surveying 1,184 Israelis and 1,270 Palestinians, found 59% of Israeli respondents supporting a two-state solution — 53% of Israeli Jews and 87% of Israeli Arabs.[17] When respondents were asked about a specific agreement package based on prior negotiation rounds — including a demilitarized Palestinian state, territorial exchange, refugee and Jerusalem arrangements, and an end to the conflict — support fell to 46% overall. Support for that package varied sharply by political orientation: 84% among the left and moderate left, 59% in the center, and only 18% on the right and moderate right.[17]

The December 2016 joint survey by Tel Aviv University's Tami Steinmetz Center and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found 54.7% of Israelis supporting a two-state solution, with support among Israeli Jews at 49.9%; margin of error was 3%.[5] That same poll found 24.3% of Israelis and 18.3% of Israeli Jews supporting a one-state arrangement in which Jews and Palestinians would be citizens of a single state with equal rights.[5]

Also in 2016, an INSS national-security index survey of approximately 800 adult Israeli citizens, using representative face-to-face interviews conducted in November and December, found 61% chose some form of agreement as Israel's best option: 37% preferred a permanent agreement and 24% preferred interim agreements leading toward one. Only 17% preferred maintaining the current situation, and 10% favored annexing all of Judea and Samaria. When respondents were presented with the practical implications of a two-state arrangement as a possible referendum choice, support declined somewhat but remained high.[3] The same survey found 69% prepared to evacuate settlements as part of a permanent agreement — 16% willing to evacuate all settlements and 53% willing to evacuate those outside the large settlement blocs — while 31% opposed evacuation under any circumstances. Respondents were considerably less willing to concede the Etzion bloc, western Samaria, and the Jordan Valley than territories outside settlement blocs.[3]

A March 2017 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs poll of 521 Jewish adults, conducted online, found only 27.2% believing negotiations with the Palestinian Authority would lead to an agreement in the coming years, with 69.2% disagreeing.[6] The JCPA-commissioned survey — covering Jewish adults only — found 29% supporting a proposal modeled on the Clinton Parameters, down from 59% in January 2005. When a five-part package was presented as a whole, 29.2% agreed and 59.1% opposed it.[6]

A 2019 Washington Institute polling summary captured what became a defining tension in Israeli attitudes: approximately 60% of Israelis said they would support new negotiations with the Palestinians, yet fewer than 40% thought those negotiations would actually be effective.[7] Support for a two-state solution among Israel's Jewish public had fallen to 46.8% — described as its lowest level since 1998 — and stood at around 25% among right-wing respondents. About half of Jewish Israelis supported the idea that Palestinians have a right to an independent state, while most centrist and left-wing Jewish respondents held that view. Across political blocs, respondents broadly expected Palestinians to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people before talks could resume.[7]

The same summary showed significant disagreement over responsibility for the failure to reach an agreement. Among right-wing Jewish respondents, 80% blamed Palestinians; among centrist Jews, 59% did; among left-wing Jews, half considered both sides equally responsible. On the Oslo Accords themselves, half of right-wing Jewish respondents thought things would be better had they never been signed, while majorities of centrist and left-wing Jews thought outcomes would have been roughly the same.[7]

The 2019 Mitvim Institute Foreign Policy Index, based on a representative sample of 700 Jewish and Arab Israeli adults surveyed by the Rafi Smith Institute in September (margin of error 3.5%), rated advancing peace with the Palestinians at 6.18 out of 10 as a priority for the next government — below strengthening the Foreign Ministry and improving ties with the EU, Arab countries, and Mediterranean countries. Sixty-one percent said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was not a partner for peace negotiations with Israel, while 20% considered him a partner.[8] Notably, 55% of the Israeli public thought Arab citizens of Israel should play a more central role in advancing peace with the Palestinians. On regional alternatives, 46% believed peace between Israel and Gulf states could be reached even without progress in the Israeli-Palestinian process; 32% thought such peace required that progress.[8]

A September 2019 Tel Aviv University and Midgam poll illustrated the distinction between process and outcome: 61% favored peace negotiations with the Palestinians and 32% opposed them, while separately only 49% supported an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and 44% opposed it.[1] The INSS series records Israeli Jewish support for "two states for two peoples" at 45% in both 2017 and 2019.[1]

An Israeli Voice Index survey conducted in January 2020 asked whether Israel should agree to a peace plan recognizing a Palestinian state. Support was 45.5% among Jewish respondents and 44% among Arab respondents — though the researchers cautioned that the question was general because details of the U.S. plan had not yet been released.[18] Support differed sharply by religiosity within the Jewish population: 62% of secular respondents supported it, compared with 43% of traditional nonreligious respondents, 34% of traditional religious respondents, 17% of religious respondents, and 29% of Haredim. Secular respondents were the only Jewish religiosity group in which a majority supported the principle; support was also greatest among left- and center-aligned party voters, while most right-wing and Haredi party voters opposed it.[18]

A Zogby Research poll conducted in June–July 2020 found that 50% of respondents considered resolving the conflict very important and 39% somewhat important — yet expectations were far lower: only 2% thought resolution in the next five years very likely and 13% somewhat likely, while 85% combined said it was unlikely to varying degrees.[1] A May 2020 Molad poll found 52% saying they would vote yes on a described final-status proposal for a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, while only 33% thought Israelis and Palestinians would eventually reach an agreement.[1]

The September 2024 Palestinian-Israeli Pulse reported retrospectively that support for the general two-state concept among Israeli Jews was 42% in September 2020 and 34% in December 2022.[19] A December 2022 Palestine/Israel Pulse poll found that only 34% of Israeli Jews and 60% of Israeli Arabs supported a two-state solution, with Jewish Israeli support having fallen into the minority after 2017 and showing few signs of recovery.[20] In that same December 2022 poll, 85% of Israeli Jews said it was not possible to trust Palestinians.[20]

The Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 produced the most abrupt documented shift in Israeli peace-process attitudes in the data series. The Tel Aviv University Peace Index conducted surveys immediately before and after the attack, comparing results from August 29–September 5, 2023 with results from October 23–28, 2023 — roughly two and a half weeks after the attack.

Support for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority among Jewish respondents fell from 48% to 25%, which the Peace Index described as an all-time low since the question was first asked in 2001.[21] Among Arab respondents, support remained high and essentially unchanged, moving from 80% to 78%.[21] The share of Jewish respondents believing that negotiations would lead to peace in the coming years fell from 17% before October 7 to 8% afterward — also described as an all-time low since 2001. Among Arab respondents, that belief rose from 39% to 57%.[21] The combined Negotiations Index fell from 38.0 to 21.6 among Jewish respondents and from 42.3 to 29.4 in the general sample.[21]

Support levels across four proposed outcomes also shifted among Jewish respondents: support for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel fell from 38% to 29%; support for annexation and one state under Israeli rule with limited Palestinian rights moved from 30% to 32%; support for a binational state changed from 11% to 9%; and support for continuing the current situation fell from 28% to 18%. The Peace Index characterized these results as a decline in support for the two-state option without a corresponding rise in any single alternative — leaving low and scattered support across all options. Arab respondents' support for the two-state option was 69% before October 7 and 72% after, with broadly stable positions overall.[21]

A comparative survey reported by Maariv compared Jewish Israeli responses from September 2023 and August 2026. Agreement with the statement that "a Palestinian state will be a disaster for the State of Israel" rose from 31% to 52%, while agreement that Israel should try to reach an agreement with a serious Palestinian leadership fell from 52% to 31%. That survey was conducted by the Movement for Security, and the Maariv report did not provide its sample size or sampling methodology.[22]

The September 2024 Palestinian-Israeli Pulse joint survey documented support for the general concept of a two-state solution at 21% among Israeli Jews — the lowest in the Pulse series, which began in 2016, and in earlier joint polling dating back to 2010 — compared with 72% among Israeli Arabs and 31% among all Israelis.[19] Support for the detailed two-state peace package, defined as including a demilitarized Palestinian state, Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line with equal territorial exchange, East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, and incorporation into a broader Arab-state peace agreement, was 25% among Israeli Jews, compared with a historical Pulse high of 45% in June 2018; opposition among Israeli Jews was 65%. Support for annexation of the West Bank without equal rights for Palestinians was 42% among Israeli Jews — the highest recorded in the Pulse series.[19]

In July 2024, the Knesset voted 68–9 for a nonbinding declaration opposing establishment of a Palestinian state — an institutional position that should not be conflated with public opinion polling but that reflects the alignment of the elected legislature at that time.[23]

An INSS survey of October 2025 — conducted online among 946 Israeli adults — found 57% of all respondents opposed to establishing a Palestinian state under any circumstances, 30% supporting one under certain conditions, and 14% saying they did not know. Among Jewish respondents specifically, 68% opposed a Palestinian state under any circumstances and only 19% supported one conditionally; among Arab respondents, 70% supported establishing one and 13% opposed it. The survey was conducted by iPanel for INSS with a maximum sampling error of ±3.18% at 95% confidence.[24]

A 2025 survey, based on 998 adults interviewed face-to-face in Hebrew and Arabic from February 5 to March 11, found that 21% of Israelis believed a Palestinian state could coexist peacefully with Israel — the lowest in the series since 2013. That figure was 16% among Jewish Israelis and 40% among Arab citizens of Israel.[25][26] The overall figure was five percentage points below spring 2024 and 14 points below spring 2023.[25] The survey was conducted during a ceasefire with Hamas before fighting resumed.[27] A sharp ideological divide was evident: 54% of Israelis on the left said peaceful coexistence was possible, compared with 29% in the center and 7% on the right.[25] Among Jewish Israelis, the shares varied by religious identity: 25% of Hilonim, 11% of Masortim, and 9% of Haredim and Datiim said coexistence was possible.[25]

The 2025 survey also asked about obstacles to peace. Three-quarters of Israelis cited lack of trust between Israelis and Palestinians as a major obstacle, and seven-in-ten cited the status of Jerusalem. On West Bank settlements, 52% called them a major obstacle while 25% said they were not an obstacle at all. Views diverged markedly by ethnicity: 82% of Jewish Israelis called lack of trust a major obstacle compared with 44% of Arab Israelis; for settlements, 43% of Jewish Israelis versus 86% of Arab Israelis called them a major obstacle.[28] Asked whether continued settlement construction helps or hurts Israel's security, 44% said it helps, 35% said it hurts, and 16% said it makes no difference. Among Jewish Israelis, 53% said construction helps — up from 31% in 2013 — and the view differed sharply by ideology: 72% on the right, 18% in the center, and 10% on the left said it helps.[28]

The 2025 survey introduced new questions on perceived commitment to peace. Among Israelis, 56% said the Israeli people were committed to working toward lasting peace and 39% said they were not; 41% said the Palestinian people were committed and 54% said they were not. For the Israeli government, 47% said committed and 49% not committed; for the Palestinian Authority, 45% committed and 52% not; for Hamas, 20% committed and 72% not committed.[25]

The March 2025 INSS survey, conducted online among 800 Jewish and 153 Arab Israeli adults with a maximum sampling error of ±3.2% at 95% confidence, asked respondents to select among several possible arrangements. Thirty-three percent of all respondents preferred separation from the Palestinians and 24% supported a two-state solution for two peoples; full annexation without civil rights for Palestinian residents was selected by 24%, and a one-state binational solution by 4%.[29] Among Jewish respondents, 39% selected separation and 29% selected full annexation without civil rights. Among Arab respondents, 60% supported a two-state solution and only 8.5% selected separation.[29]

A separate question in the same survey on a one-state arrangement found 45% of all respondents opposed, 31% supporting it on the condition that Palestinians would not receive full civil rights, 9% supporting it with equal civil rights, and 15% saying they did not know. Among Jewish respondents, 37% supported the version without full civil rights and only 3% supported it with equal civil rights; among Arab respondents, 33% supported the equal-rights version and 9% the version without.[29]

Pew's 2026 survey, covering 1,001 adults interviewed in Hebrew and Arabic from April 5 to May 6 — with fieldwork beginning during the Iran war and continuing after an initial ceasefire declared on April 7 — found that 56% of Israelis said peaceful coexistence between Israel and an independent Palestinian state was not possible, the first time a majority gave that answer in Pew's series. Only 17% said coexistence was possible; 6% volunteered "it depends," and 20% did not answer — double the share who did not answer in 2025.[30] Among Jewish Israelis, 64% said coexistence was not possible and 16% said it was; among Arab Israelis, 23% said it was possible and 26% said it was not, though 46% did not answer — a large nonresponse rate that limits direct comparison of their substantive answers.[30]

Among Israelis who said in the 2026 Pew survey that coexistence was possible, qualitative themes included peace as a necessity, two states as a viable arrangement, the right of both peoples to statehood, and references to Oslo as a possible model; some conditioned their view on rebuilt trust, compromise, changes in education or leadership, restraining extremists, ending violence, or receiving security guarantees.[30] Those who said coexistence was impossible cited security fears, concern that a Palestinian state could threaten Israel, distrust, past violence and the October 7 attack, doubts that Palestinians would honor agreements, territorial claims, Jerusalem, settlements, and religious or cultural differences.[30]

The July 2026 Peace Index survey — conducted online by iPanel among 608 Israeli adults including 504 Jews and 104 Arabs, with a maximum sampling error of ±4.2% — found support for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority at 29% among Jewish respondents and 81% among Arab respondents. Only 12% of Jewish respondents and 48% of Arab respondents believed negotiations would lead to peace in the coming years.[31] Among Jewish respondents, support stood at 33% for annexation with limited Palestinian rights, 25% for continuing the status quo, 24% for the two-state solution, and 6% for a binational state. Among Arab respondents, 71% supported the two-state option.[31]

The July 2026 data showed sharp internal variation by political identification among Jewish respondents: support for negotiations was 7% among right-wing respondents, 22% among moderate-right respondents, 54% among centrists, and 83% among left-wing respondents. Support for a two-state solution was 6%, 16%, 39%, and 80% in those same groups; support for annexation was 53%, 42%, 25%, and 8%.[31] A Council for Secure America polling series compiled by the Jewish Virtual Library records support for the two-state solution at 20% in July 2024, 20% in February 2025, 14% in August 2025, and 22% in June 2026, with opposition ranging from 63% to 69% in those surveys.[1]

Several consistent patterns emerge across the data assembled here. Jewish and Arab Israeli respondents have differed substantially across many surveys and major questions, including support for negotiations, confidence in their prospects, preference for a two-state outcome, and assessments of whether peaceful coexistence is possible. Aggregate Israeli figures can therefore obscure substantial differences between population groups.[1]

Within the Jewish Israeli population, political orientation and religious identity are major correlates of opinion. Left-wing and secular Jewish Israelis have consistently expressed considerably more support for negotiations, a Palestinian state, and the possibility of coexistence than right-wing or Haredi respondents.[31][25] In the July 2026 Peace Index, the gap between left and right on support for negotiations was 83% versus 7%; on support for a two-state solution it was 80% versus 6%.[31]

The gap between willingness to hold talks and confidence in their outcome has been another consistent feature. In 2019, roughly 60% supported new negotiations while fewer than 40% thought they would be effective.[7] By July 2026, only 12% of Jewish respondents believed negotiations would lead to peace even though 29% still expressed support for holding them.[31] In the 2026 Peace Index, 58% of Israeli Jews said they very much disbelieved that negotiations would lead to peace.[1]

Surveys also document that support depends heavily on the specific arrangement proposed. In 2016, INSS found that presenting practical implications of a two-state arrangement in a referendum format reduced support somewhat, though it remained high.[3] The September 2024 Pulse found more Israeli Jews supporting a detailed peace package (25%) than the general two-state concept (21%), illustrating that specific terms can cut in either direction depending on their content.[19]

The Jewish Virtual Library explicitly advises readers to consult each underlying study and its methodology before comparing results across surveys, noting that these polls use different question wordings, response options, populations, and field dates.[1] Pew's 2025 Israeli fieldwork ended before hostilities resumed on March 18, 2025, and its 2026 survey was conducted during and after an Iran war ceasefire — reminders that the security context at the time of fieldwork shapes results.[26][30] The November 2023 Peace Index comparison between pre– and post–October 7 surveys is among the clearest illustrations: the attack produced a documented, immediate, and substantial downward shift in Jewish Israeli support for negotiations and for the two-state outcome.[21]