IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz at Regional Brigade Headquarters. Photo: IDF via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – According to a poll conducted by Israel Hayom and the New Wave Research Institute to sum up the recent fighting, 74 percent of the Jewish public in Israel think that operation Protective Edge should be called a war. An even higher percentage of women and residents of southern Israel (around 80 percent) said it was a war.

Sixty-three percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the conduct of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Gaza fighting, and a similar percentage expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Eighty-six percent of people polled saw the elimination of the terror tunnels leading into Israel as a “significant achievement” for Israel, and 70 percent agreed that Hamas had been dealt a harsh blow.

However, while a majority (53 percent) of respondents agreed that the IDF had increased its deterrence, nearly half (49 percent) of those polled said they believed that the war had ended without any victor.

An overwhelming majority of 89 percent said they believed that there would be another round of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Nearly 70 percent of pollees said they did not believe the Cairo talks would lead to a long-term solution.

Most of the respondents (82 percent) were also worried about rising anti-Semitism in the world, especially in Europe, and said Jews should immigrate to Israel. Fifty-one percent of people polled believed that U.S. President Barack Obama showed antagonism toward Israel during the war.