Less than half of the Israeli public believes that Israel will be able to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, a study released by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University has found.
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Overall, the study found that the majority of Israelis are far more concerned about social challenges and internal rifts than any external threat.
The data shows that 66% of Israelis are more concerned about internal social threats than external ones and only 27% said the opposite.
Some 43% of respondents stated that they are most concerned about the tension between Arabs and Jews in Israel.
Asked to rank the most pressing external threats to Israel, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ranked top by a small margin: 23% of respondents named a nuclear Iran as the most serious threat to Israel, and 21% named the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
An additional 10% said Hamas, the terrorist group controlling the Gaza Strip, was the biggest threat to Israel; 15% mentioned terrorism, and only 13% named the northern sector, where Israel borders war-torn Syria and Lebanon – home to Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah – as the most serious threat the Jewish state faces.
The study further shows that 85% of the public believe that "Israel can rely solely on itself" vis-à-vis the external threats it faces, but only 45% believe Israel has the operational capability to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
Some 34% believe that Israel cannot do so on its own, and 21% were undecided.
With respect to the northern sector, 40% of Israelis support striking Hezbollah's precision missile production infrastructure even at the cost of war.
Only 23% prefer bolstering Israel's missile defenses at the expense of a military offensive, and 16% support reaching an agreement on the issue through international mediation.
As for the internal conflicts in Israeli society, 57% of those polled think that Israeli democracy is in danger. Some 61% believe that social budgets should be prioritized over the defense budget, 63% believe that Jews should be allowed to ascend the Temple Mount, and 39% support allowing Jews to pray there – a practice currently banned as part of the efforts to maintain the status quo on the holy site, which is one of Jerusalem's most volatile locations.
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