ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a more specific aspect of the social interface with national security by focusing on Israeli-Jewish public opinion on security matters. It presents the basic structure of security-related public opinion and then focuses on the "world is against us" postulate, which–it is often argued–dominates Israelis' security cognition. The chapter considers public opinion on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the main security challenge. It outlines the trajectory of the grassroots assessment of the national security situation and also discusses the public's image of the Israel Defense Forces and of political officeholders, the main "providers" of national security. The chapter deals with the location of national security on the public's national-priority scale. At the end of the second decade of the 2000s, then, Israel is neither a new Sparta nor a new Athens, but situated somewhere in between those polar opposites. "Security" is no longer the paramount issue, probably–albeit paradoxically–thanks to the prevalent sense that it is being handled competently.
