The Government Is Losing Its Grip - Even Among Its Supporters

Dr. Shahaf Zamir, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility, Reichman University

To understand the relationship between the public and the government, we need to examine the extent to which Israelis believe the government is attentive to their problems and functioning to their satisfaction. These two indicators have been consistently measured since 2022 in monthly public opinion surveys by the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility at Reichman University, and they paint a particularly grim picture of the loss of public trust in the government's functioning and attentiveness– not only among government opponents, but also among those who supported it in the last elections.

The data shows that overall satisfaction with the government's functioning has plummeted by half - from a rate of approximately 37% in January 2023 to levels of close to only 20% in the summer of 2025. The sense that the government is attentive to the public also declined during the same period from approximately 30% to less than 20%. On average, this represents a decrease of close to 10% compared to satisfaction with the Bennett-Lapid government that preceded it.

However, the most dramatic trends are not among the general public – but among coalition voters themselves. In the first months of the current government's tenure, over 70% of its voters were satisfied with its functioning and close to 60% believed it was attentive to the public's problems. However, as time passed, these rates dropped steadily: by early 2024 they were already measured at around only 45%, and in 2025, after a slight increase, at around 50% at most. In other words: only about half of coalition voters are still satisfied with the functioning of the government they voted for.

On the other side of the map, among opposition voters, the picture is consistently bleak: satisfaction rates and the sense of government attentiveness hover around only 5%–10% throughout the entire period. A government is supposed to represent and work for all citizens, and therefore this figure reflects a situation in which large segments of the public feel that the government is not working for them at all. This adds to a general phenomenon that is intensifying in Israeli society and politics – polarization between the political sides. Thus, the decline in trust is not only a result of different political positions but of a deep rift in the perception of government attentiveness.

What is causing this erosion? Part of the answer lies in the reality of recent years. The internal disputes over judicial reforms, the war in Gaza and the stagnation it has caused, and the growing sense of disconnect between leadership and the public – all have eroded public trust in government institutions (data from the Institute for Liberty and Responsibility shows that fewer than 1 in 5 Israelis trusts the government and even fewer trust the Knesset). In Israel, where the governmental system is particularly centralized and there are no strong additional representation mechanisms beyond the government and Knesset, this gap is amplified even further.

From a democratic perspective, the implications are even broader. In the 1960s and 1970s, theorists like Hanna Pitkin already wrote about political responsiveness as a guiding principle of democracy. According to her writings, elected officials in a democracy must not only act according to the interests of their voters but respond to their demands and wishes. Robert Dahl also defined democracy as a system in which the government responds to the public will. When even voters of the ruling parties cease to believe that the government is listening to them, this is not just a crisis of trust but damage to the very core of the democratic promise itself. In the absence of a sense of political attentiveness, citizens tend to lose faith not only in the government but in the entire system – and to seek alternative arrangements.

A government that loses the trust of its voters is not only politically weak – it may become socially disconnected, struggling to manage long-term policy and mobilize public cooperation. These data are not just a warning sign – they are a reminder of the cumulative price of public management lacking responsiveness. The Israeli public, across all its camps, is signaling that it wants leadership that speaks less to itself (or to specific sectoral groups) and more to its citizens (in general or at least to broad groups). If the current government – or any government that comes after it – fails to reverse this trend, it may discover that this crisis is no longer temporary but ongoing and permanent.