00:00You were telling us about how long Israeli officials expect this conflict to last,
00:05and you were saying they expect the offensive in Lebanon to last perhaps longer than their actions in Iran.
00:13Right, and I think the unprecedented scale of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon this time
00:19indicates in part that the United States is just paying less attention.
00:24Unlike Iran, Israel's acting completely alone in Lebanon,
00:29and it really does seem as if, for now, the United States has given Israel a completely free hand.
00:36Israeli ministers are talking about leveling southern Lebanon.
00:41The army is talking about keeping a southern band of Syria as a security area protecting Israel.
00:52And the extent of the bombing and the extent of the evacuation notices, really, which is without precedent,
00:59not to mention this massive bombing, indicates that Israel sees an opportunity to completely and totally destroy Hezbollah,
01:09you know, to uproot it, to destroy it, and that for now Israel can really do what it wants.
01:15There's very little impact.
01:17In fact, the French government, of course, did ask Israel not to bomb southern Lebanon at their request to the
01:23Lebanese government,
01:24and Israel, I think, didn't even bother to respond.
01:28And meanwhile, Naga, how is this war with Iran, and it's also extended, you know, into the Gulf and into
01:35Lebanon,
01:36being seen by the Israeli public, especially given that the country has seen casualties?
01:42So it's a really interesting combination of responses.
01:46When you speak to Israelis, as I've finally been able to do in the last few days,
01:52there's a lot of concern, there's a lot of exhaustion, and there's an enormous amount of feeling kind of forsaken.
02:00The Israeli government is not succeeding in providing the support services for Israelis that they need.
02:08So you even have thousands of people here in Israel who lost their homes in the previous war with Iran,
02:16back in June, who their homes are not even, haven't even started to be rebuilt.
02:22They don't really have good options about where to live.
02:25Many are just staying with relatives still now, eight months later.
02:28And now you have a new wave of similar people.
02:32We heard yesterday from the Israeli health ministry that more than 2,000 homes have been destroyed and had to
02:39be evacuated.
02:40My sense is that it is significantly more than that, but that the numbers aren't being reported
02:45because people have essentially just self-evacuated from their cities and towns and homes.
02:53But we also got a new series, a new set of polls, finally, in the last two days, and it's
03:00fascinating.
03:01What you see, speaking just on general terms, because there are differences from people who vote left and right,
03:08there's significant differences between Jewish and Arab Israelis.
03:11But that said, across the board, Israelis support a military action in Iran.
03:18So there is support for this war when it's described as, you know, an effort to get rid of the
03:24threat,
03:25the Iranian threat over Israel, which I would say Israelis across the board perceive as a very dangerous threat.
03:32That said, the numbers haven't shifted by even one point regarding support for this government.
03:40Netanyahu, in none of the polls that came out yesterday or on Thursday, did Netanyahu gain even one point of
03:48support.
03:49So what you have are, it's a paradox of Israelis who feel that an action, a military action against Iran
03:57is justified.
03:58It's entirely possible, by the way, that one of the reasons for that is this also unprecedented collaboration
04:04between Israel and the United States that gives Israel the feeling that they're being supported.
04:10And yet there's very little confidence in the Israeli government itself.
04:16If elections were held today, as has been true for more than two years, Netanyahu could not reform a government.
04:23To me, what this indicates is that while the White House is talking about four to six more weeks of
04:29war,
04:29and Israel is talking for now about no end to the war, I don't think that the Israelis are going
04:36to give Netanyahu that long a leash
04:39because there's not enough confidence in him and his leadership for now.
04:44It's going to be disappointing news for Netanyahu, likely banking on this war to reboost his popularity.
04:50Noga, thank you so much, as always, for your updates.
04:53That's our correspondent, Noga Tarnopolski, reporting there from Jerusalem.
Comments