That some Israelis believe the settlements help security makes much more sense considering what happened after Israel disengaged from Gaza and uprooted all settlements there - things became much much worse (both for Israel and for Gaza) as I think we all can agree.
Another thing is that Israel is in the middle of a horrible war so the public mood for obvious reasons goes much more to the right. If you ask the Palestinian public questions about peace prospects you wouldn't hear a lot of great things either.
If push came to shove most Israelis wouldn't care at all if settlements are uprooted again just like Israel did in Gaza, the only Israelis out protesting last time Israel took out settlements were religious Zionists: determined, loud, sometimes violent but definitely not mainstream. No one else cared much.
Even the pew numbers you are showing tell that even now the settlements at the very least are controversial in Israel and definitely not mainstream (no majority is saying they help security).
That some Israelis believe the settlements help security only makes sense in the same way white Rhodesians believed counter insurgency made them safe[1]. The settlements are unambiguously illegal and they do infringe on civil rights of Palestinians. There is nothing complicated here. The Israelis that believe this are just wrong, and probably racist, and they have no rights to these wrong beliefs to be entered as policy.
Relevant here is what actually gets enacted as a policy and at what time. The Israeli government knows full well that these settlements are illegal, that they are morally wrong, and that they strip Palestinians of their civil rights, but they keep it as policy to maintain and expend them anyway. With that knowledge we can assume they don’t care about Palestinian civil rights. And as long as the Israeli electorate doesn’t see this as a deal breaker—which demonstrably, they don’t—we can (and honestly should) assume similar policies in Gaza. At the very least we should belief elected official when they claim they want to violate human rights of Palestinians. Especially now as they have demonstrated they are both willing and capable of committing a genocide.
> That some Israelis believe the settlements help security only makes sense in the same way white Rhodesians believed counter insurgency made them safe[1]
I have no idea what happened in Rhodesia and I don't think yet another comparison (let me guess - it makes Israel look bad right?) is helpful.
The reality is the last disengagement from Gaza went absolutely horribly. Palestinians should also have a big burden to prove they can handle Israel disengaging - so far they absolutely haven't - in Gaza they've been using all their money and energy to try create armies and infrastructure to bring Israel down. We should also believe them when they're saying October 7th was just the start and that "from the river to the sea" Palestine is theirs - this is not some "far right" Palestinian talking point but pretty much a unanimous Palestinian position.
I'm not going to engage your genocide allegation, you're free to believe what you want and we're not going to change each other's minds on this.
No worries. We all learn bit by bit. But I think you could have a look at it. Many of the security beliefs that you shared above related to Israel are not new, but like all the others they are wrong, and dehumanising. Those so called security issues were backbone of violent colonisation and Genocides. Americas, Africa and Asia alike.
The notion that the rest are savages, who can't govern for their interest and we must do it for them, is not new, and is inhuman and wrong. And it is not even new to Zionism, which after all, has unfolded to be a pretty sophisticated colonisation process.
BTW, Israel never fully disengaged from Gaza, you can look up on Gaza Freedom Floatilla raid. Those are not the actions of a disengaged regime, but a colonialist entity doing crimes in the name of security. And although they are now separated by occupation, Gaza and West Bank are not different people. One can't continue to occupy one region, storm their holy sites, while repressing other region to be a an open air prison, and say that we have disengaged.
If push came to shove most Israelis wouldn't care at all if settlements are uprooted again just like Israel did in Gaza, the only Israelis out protesting last time Israel took out settlements were religious Zionists: determined, loud, sometimes violent but definitely not mainstream. No one else cared much.
Even the pew numbers you are showing tell that even now the settlements at the very least are controversial in Israel and definitely not mainstream (no majority is saying they help security).