The Israeli Democracy Index 2025 - Selected Findings

Each year, the Israeli Democracy Index takes the pulse of the Israeli public by conducting research based on the survey findings of a representative sample of the entire population in Israel. Presented each year to the President of the State of Israel, the Israeli Democracy Index is a go-to address for reliable, comprehensive, and up to date information on the state of Israeli democracy and society. We are pleased to present the twenty-third survey in the Israel Democracy Institute's annual Democracy Index project, conducted in May 2025 with a validation in November 2025.

For Israelis, 2025, which this report examines, was in many respects a continuation of 2024. Most of the year was marked by an intense and prolonged wartime effort, including a major conflict with Iran that rattled Israeli society in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, internal divisions remained strong, with public debates and protests surrounding the war alongside the creeping return of the judicial overhaul initiatives that preceded the war.

The continuity of these trends this year likely contributed to the substantial similarity between the 2024 survey findings and those of the 2025 survey. Broadly speaking, trends of poor assessments of the state of affairs and democracy in Israel remain the same, as does the sense of tension between political camps. Trust in the various branches of government remained low and, in some cases, eroded slightly, while assessments of solidarity within Israeli society remained moderate to low.

However, not all the findings are negative. The high share (and this year, even higher) of those who prefer to continue living in Israel rather than emigrate to other countries remains unchanged, as do the high levels of trust in the IDF among Jews. Interestingly, in international indices, there has been almost no movement, despite the deterioration of Israel’s standing internationally.

At the time of writing, a ceasefire agreement has been signed, and the process of returning the surviving hostages and the bodies of the deceased is nearing completion. Meanwhile, elections loom as Israelis look to 2026, and campaigns are likely to pour fuel onto the fire of polarization. The findings presented in this report should therefore serve mainly as a reference point for understanding what Israelis have recently experienced, and perhaps, with appropriate research caution, as a basis for assessing what may unfold in Israel’s public sphere in the near future.

Data collection

The two polling firms that carried out the field work for this year’s survey were Midgam (Hebrew interviews, via internet and telephone) and Afkar Research and Knowledge (Arabic interviews, via telephone).

The data were collected between May 4 and May 28, 2025. In November 2025, a validation was conducted of some of the survey findings, and where the results of this validation appear below, they are identified as such. The validation was conducted by Shiluv I²R in Hebrew and Afkar in Arabic.