Close to half of Israelis, 47%, believe that Israel’s leadership is corrupt but only 23% of Likud supporters think so, according to the 16th annual Israel Democracy Index conducted by the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.
The study, based on a representative sample of 1,041 respondents who participated in face to face interviews, is considered the most comprehensive annual poll about Israeli society and democracy. This year, the poll asked additional questions about political corruption.
lose to half of Israelis, 47%, believe that Israel’s leadership is corrupt but only 23% of Likud supporters think so, according to the 16th annual Israel Democracy Index conducted by the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute.
The study, based on a representative sample of 1,041 respondents who participated in face to face interviews, is considered the most comprehensive annual poll about Israeli society and democracy. This year, the poll asked additional questions about political corruption.
The four institutions least trusted by the Israeli public (Jews and Arabs) are the media (31%), the government (30.5%), the Knesset (27.5%) and political parties (16%).
Guttman Center head Prof. Tamar Hermann told The Jerusalem Post that trust in government is low in democracies around the world, including in the US, where trust in Congress is only between eight and 12%. She said she was also not surprised by her study’s findings on the media, saying that distrust in the media is skewed by the Right, among whom some 70% do not trust the media.
“The issue of fake news is deeply inculcated into Israeli society,” she said, adding that the Right and Left have different reasons for distrusting the government.
When asked what the most important quality is in a politician, 38% of Israelis said integrity and honesty, 24% said the ability to get things done, 19% pcited keeping promises to voters, and only 13.5% defined ideology as most important.
Asked whether one has to be corrupt to reach the top in Israel, only 37% answered in the affirmative, substantially less than in previous years. Two thirds of the Right did not agree with this statement, compared with 55% among centrist voters.
Only 42% of Israelis reported that they would consider voting for a party even if the party leader was suspected of corruption, while 38% reported that this would not influence their decision and 16% said that corruption suspicions would increase the likelihood that they would vote for the party. Among Likud voters, 55% said hypothetical corruption allegations against the leader of their party would not influence how they vote.
Fifty-two percent of Israelis think that the ongoing corruption investigations of their leadership testify to the strength of Israel’s democracy, while 40% think that they reflect its weakness. Most Israelis (60%) think that the corruption investigations are biased, and that not all suspects are treated equally. Forty-two percent think that the corruption investigations are overblown and 57% think that they are justified.
Taking a look at corruption scores on international indexes, on the World Bank's Rule of Law Index, Israel’s ranking dropped by three places compared to last year. It is the 39th out of 209 countries surveyed. In Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, Israel’s scores have dropped over the past year to 32nd place of 180. On the World Bank’s Control of Corruption Index, which examines the level of corruption at the local and regional levels, and the influence of elites and private interests on the country's conduct, Israel improved by 2.5 points and ranks 39th out of 209 countries in the world.
All political camps in Israel see the peace process as a lower priority than corruption for the government to deal with. Out of six issues, it was ranked sixth by the Right and Center and third on the Left, after cleaning corruption and closing the socio-political gap.
When asked what the biggest divide is in Israeli society, 26% said the gap between Right and Left, which has quadrupled since 2012% when only nine percent said so.
The percentage of Israelis defining themselves as right-wing is 55%, centrist 39% and Left is only 16%.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
