In another two weeks’ time, Yochanan Plesner, the president of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), will present his annual report on public confidence in the government to President Isaac Herzog. The report is expected to reveal a growing problem of a lack in the public’s confidence in official institutions, but one statistic is likely to be most worrying of all, one that reveals a crisis of public confidence in the IDF.
Last year’s report already noted a steep decline in public confidence in the IDF, from 90 percent to 81 percent – numbers that shocked many as such a decline had never been noted in the past, even during difficult periods. The IDF itself, however, refused to be unduly concerned, arguing that it was a temporary blip that would correct itself in time, and not something that needed to be analyzed and understood.
However, the figures that are to be presented at the beginning of January reveal a genuine crisis of confidence. Far from being a temporary blip, the figures showing a decline in the public’s confidence in the IDF in 2020 appear to be part of a growing trend, even though they did recover somewhat around the period of Operation Guardian of the Walls. That effect was not long-lasting – by the end of the year, the statistics only confirmed what the report from 2020 had already revealed.