Just 15 percent of Israelis would keep Netanyahu as prime minister after war: Survey

Only 15 percent of Israelis want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stay in his position after the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The Viterbi Family Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute survey also found that 23 percent of Israelis want Benny Gantz, a member of the current emergency unity government, to be prime minister instead of Netanyahu.

On Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed claims his country is committing a genocide in Gaza, in the wake of South Africa’s filing of a case against his country at the United Nations’s top court.

“I would like to say a word about South Africa’s false accusation that Israel is committing genocide. No, South Africa, it is not we who have come to perpetrate genocide, it is Hamas,” Netanyahu said during a Cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, according to an English translation reported by Agence France-Presse. 

“Hamas would kill us all if it only could,” Netanyahu added.

More than 21,500 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s retaliatory actions for an attack by Hamas in early October that killed 1,200 Israelis.

The poll also found only 10.8 percent of Israelis being “[v]ery optimistic” about the “state of democratic governance” in Israel. Only 7 percent of respondents said Israel is meeting the goal of “[t]oppling Hamas” to a “[v]ery large extent.” About 36 percent said it is meeting the aforementioned goal to a “[m]oderate extent.”

The survey was conducted Dec. 25-28, featuring responses from 756 people. The maximum sampling error for the survey was plus or minus 3.55 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.