Manipulating Israeli Public Opinion

by Naomi Linder Kahn 

• The results of the survey indicate that the Israeli public has far greater trust in the Knesset -- by dozens of percentage points -- than it does in Israel's judiciary, from the Supreme Court down to the legal advisors and counselors who answer to the Supreme Court.
• As almost always, the different answers are the result of differences built into the questions. The wording of the question posed in the Israel Democracy Institute survey referred to the "level of trust in the Knesset" while the "Direct Polls Trust Index" survey examined trust "in the members of the Knesset you elected."
• [T]he purposefully phrased IDI survey was crafted to justify weakening the powers of the legislative branch and granting excessive powers to the judicial branch.
• The way [the IDI's] question was worded regarding the public's trust in the Knesset ensured that the results would create the totally false impression that the public does not trust the members of the Knesset and favors the judges of the Supreme Court.
• The relevant question, which is more closely reflected in the wording of the Direct Polls survey, is the level of the public's trust in the members of the Knesset chosen by them, and the results show that an absolute majority of the public trusts its elected representatives -- a fact that points to an extremely healthy parliamentary democracy.
• These campaigns to undemocratically overturn the result of a free and fair election would surely have caught the eye of George Orwell -- especially as they were all conducted under the rallying cry of "protecting democracy."

The results of a recent survey indicate that the Israeli public has far greater trust in the Knesset -- by dozens of percentage points -- than it does in Israel's judiciary, from the Supreme Court down to the legal advisors and counselors who answer to the Supreme Court. Pictured: A voting booth at a polling station in Israel on election day November 1, 2022. (Photo by Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)


Both George Orwell and Mark Twain would have demanded that we take notice.

The results of a recent "trust index" survey, conducted in Israel, revealed far more than just the dry numbers they report -- although of course they are important. Even more important are issues concerning public trust -- the very core of democracy.

Against the backdrop of controversy surrounding reform of Israel's judicial system, the survey was conducted in early May 2023 by Direct Polls Ltd., an independent Israeli polling company, to examine the degree of public trust in Israel's state institutions -- the Knesset (parliament), the Supreme Court, the president, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The results of the survey indicate that the Israeli public has far greater trust in the Knesset -- by dozens of percentage points -- than it does in Israel's judiciary, from the Supreme Court down to the legal advisors and counselors who answer to the Supreme Court.

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