In today’s newsletter: This new war has exposed widening fractures between Israel and its allies, and the country finds itself increasingly out of step with global opinion
Patrick Greenfield for the Guardian
Thu 26 Mar 2026 02.40 EDT
Good morning. Israel may be the only country in the world where there is overwhelming public support for the conflict in Iran. Despite its impact on everyday life in the country – at least 15 people have been killed and hundreds more injured by Iranian missiles since the war started in February, and school closures and missile warnings remain routine – polling puts support for the war at more than 90% among Jewish Israelis.
The contrast with the rest of the world is stark. Nearly a month into the fighting, polling shows that 60% of the US public oppose the war with Iran, and just one in four backed the initial strikes. In the Gulf, Europe and Asia, the conflict is widely unpopular, as severe economic consequences already begin to bite.
For this morning’s newsletter, I asked the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, Emma Graham-Harrison, who is based in Jerusalem, about how the war with Iran is seen inside Israel – and its consequences for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But first, the headlines.
In depth: ‘There’s a sense in Israel that if you suffer through, you get long-term security’
Since the 7 October massacre in 2023, the bloodiest day for Israeli civilians in the country’s history, many Jewish Israelis see themselves as under siege in a hostile world, says Emma. It is still shaping life today: many Jewish Israelis have concluded that an aggressive security policy is the only way to keep the country and loved ones safe, regardless of the international reaction to Israel’s regional wars.
“I think a lot of people’s support for the Iran war inside Israel is premised on the idea that the short-term suffering is to ensure long-term security, although many security experts say Israel does not have a clear strategy to turn impressive tactical achievements like killing Ali Khamenei into long-term security. At the most extreme, there is death, people are injured, there’s loss and damage to property, kids haven’t been going to school, there’s repeatedly getting up and going to the bomb shelter at night. But there’s a sense in Israel that if you suffer through this, you’ll get long-term security,” Emma says.
Life in Jerusalem is still restricted by the realities of war. Many are working from home, and there are restrictions on opening on everything from cafes to gyms.
“People are very tired because you never know when the next alert is going to be. In Jerusalem, when the sirens go off, you have 90 seconds to get to a shelter. In the north, where the rockets are coming from, people have just a matter of seconds,” she says.
That is if you are lucky enough to have a bomb shelter within reach. Palestinian citizens of Israel are much less likely to have access to a shelter, and are much less likely to support the war than Jewish Israelis. In the West Bank, there are no sirens, even though as an occupying military power Israel has responsibility for the civilian population. Last week, four women were killed in a beauty salon near Hebron.
Netanyahu’s electoral fortunes
The public support for the war with Iran has not translated into a resurgence in the political fortunes of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, says Emma. The first general election since 7 October will be held later this year – with Netanyahu currently lagging behind in the polls.
“There is majority support for Netanyahu’s decision to launch this war with Iran and his handling of it, even among people who do not want to give him another term. With Gaza, polls show they didn’t always think he was making decisions for security reasons. They thought his own personal considerations came into it. But on this, they trust him much more,” she says.
“Even so, they still don’t seem to want to bring him back to office. And if his coalition doesn’t get enough seats to return him to power, he’s obviously very worried about it because he’s on trial for corruption, and has asked Donald Trump to intervene by pushing the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog to give him a pre-emptive pardon.”
Too close to Trump
However, some in Israel who support the war in principle are worried that by pushing to attack Iran, Netanyahu has put the country’s most important diplomatic relationship in jeopardy.
“More than one of the Israeli intelligence and military officials who I spoke to about Israel’s war aims said the greatest risk of the war was the long-term damage it might do to the relationship between Israel and America,” Emma says.
Historically, Israel’s foreign policy has been based on cultivating bipartisan ties. Netanyahu has effectively abandoned that to cultivate an extremely close relationship with Trump. US polls were already showing a decline in support for Israel before the attacks on Iran.
If this ends in way which is seen as a failure in the US, the examination of Trump’s decision to go to war is likely to produce a lot more of the rhetoric we saw in the resignation of Joe Kent, the far-right former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“If this war creates a situation where future American presidents, whether Democrat or Republican, don’t want such a close relationship with Israel, even significant military gains might end up looking like a pyrrhic victory, because that alliance is so foundational for Israel” says Emma.
Israel’s isolation
“One thing I find striking is that if you look at the history of where Israel has found security on its borders, it reached negotiated agreements with Jordan and Egypt, once considered an existential threat as Iran is now. The unwillingness to look at those examples or even really discuss them as positive things – insisting instead that the only route to security is through military power – is really dangerous and disturbing. But you can see why it brings Trump and Netanyahu together because they want to burn through the old world order and what’s left of international law – with might is right.”
Even so, Emma says that most Israelis are undeterred by international criticism of the conflict, despite the growing economic toll.
“Israel might be the only place in the world where there is broad support for this war. No one else is really happy about it. The Americans certainly aren’t. No one in the Gulf is. For people in Lebanon and Iran, this is horrific. Obviously ordinary Iranians, as much as they hate their government, and risked their lives to protest against it, does not mean they see US and Israeli bombs as a route to a better future. You only have to consider Iraq,” Emma says.
“It is an reflection of how isolated Israel already is, something that seems likely to deepen the longer this conflict continues.”
NOTE: Italics and bold sentences above were done by the Alliance