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Today on State of the World, Israeli public opinion on the Iran War and what is moving through
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the street of Hormuz. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's
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most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Tuesday, March 24th. I'm Greg
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Dixon. In a few minutes, we'll hear about which ships are being allowed to travel the maritime
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choke point controlled by Iran. First, support for the war in Iran is extremely high among Israeli
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Jews. But as NPR's carry con found out, frequent strikes by Iran disrupting lives, killing at least
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15 so far, has taken a toll. Workers sweep up piles of broken glass at the large indoor mall in
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Iraq. It's just across the street from where an Iranian missile hits Saturday night as 50-year-old
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Orin Gospelker's shift as the mall security guard was ending. The siren was off. I go to the
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shelter and I heard boom and all the dust inside. Dust filled the bunker and the children in there
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began crying. He said, you could feel the bomb's shockways roar through the building and hear glass
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shattering everywhere. Gospelker says from day one, he supported the war in Iran.
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We started it and yes, we need to finish them. All this regime, all this radical Muslims regime.
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Despite the destruction all around town, residents are defiant.
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In Chiris, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's motorcade whizzes by and when President Isha Khurzag
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visits a local bakery. Israeli Jews are nearly unanimous in their support for the war,
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according to public opinion polls. In the first week and two separate polls, more than 90 percent of
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Israeli Jews approved of Israel strikes on Iran and the assassination of its top leaders.
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Dalia Shemlin, a public opinion researcher and columnist, says Israelis have shown deep political
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division over the past years, especially during the war in Gaza. But when it comes to Iran,
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they are more unified. The perceived threat of Iran seems to rise above some of the deepest
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political divisions in Israeli life. But we don't know how long that will affect our last.
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Polls are already showing slight cracks in that unity as millions of Israelis continue spending
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hours in bomb shelters. Rebecca Ashener, husband Iit Hayatam,
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are making aspresses in their apartment in Ranaana in central Israel.
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We've made so much coffee the last three weeks, we know what we're doing.
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They have three kids stuck at home and live on the fifth floor. Getting everyone down to the bunker
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is tough, especially in the middle of the night. They're exhausted. But Ashen says it will be worth it
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for a more secure Israel. It's about making the world and its entirety safer and it's hard to see
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how something you think is so true is not perceived as such by so many people across the world.
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Hatam, however, isn't as optimistic. There's internal reasons for war in Israel that would be
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good for the government. He doesn't trust Netanyahu's motivations for the war. That cynicism is gaining
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ground. Another siren sounds in a Tel Aviv neighborhood.
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However, this time, the gap between the siren and interceptors stopping the Iranian missile was short.
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I'm super tired all the time. It's like a state of tiredness that wouldn't leave me.
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Rumi, who asked we only use her first name so she could speak publicly about her politics without
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retribution, says she was more hopeful at the beginning of the war that life in Israel would be
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safer. I'm afraid that it's just going to be for nothing and the Iranians will still be caged
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by this regime and the Middle East will just be more and more angry.
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There are more than 1,000 ships, mostly oil tankers, sitting. They're waiting near the
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strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the world's shipping. Iranian attacks have forced them to
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wait until it's safe to pass. But the strait is not closed off for everyone. And PR's Jackie
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Northam tells us who's getting through and why. During times of peace, about 130 ships would cross
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a narrow strait of Hormuz each day. But since the war in Iran broke out, that number has plummeted
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to four or five vessels a day. Most of those are either owned or flagged in Iran. But Brigitte
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Daikun, a senior analyst at Lloyd's List, the shipping industry news provider, said recently there's
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been other activity in the strait. We have in the last several days seen some vessels linked directly
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to India's government and Pakistan's governments going through. And we're also now getting
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word that China is potentially pushing or there is going to be a push for China state linked
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vessels to pass through. Several governments, including India, China and Iraq are in negotiations with
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Tehran about coordinating ship transit, according to Lloyd's List. Daikun, speaking at an event by
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the International Institute of Strategic Studies, says it's unclear what criteria is being used.
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I would say there's not a ton of evidence to suggest that anyone has a free pass through
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the strait of Hormuz. You know, I think if there were proper, you know, negotiated agreements
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broadly, we would see a lot more vessels moving. I mean, it's still only like, you know, four or
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five ships. It's not a huge, huge volume. Daikun says the ships that got through were
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grilled by Iran about ownership, ports of call and any affiliation with the US or Israel.
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Jim Crane is an energy research fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, specializing
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in the Middle East. He says this is similar to the situation a few years ago in Yemen
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when Iranian-aligned Houthis attacked ships in the Red Sea in retaliation for the Gaza war.
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It looks like the Iranians have sort of taken a page from the Houthi playbook here,
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giving sort of selective access to the strait of Hormuz, to friendly ships or crews or owners
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from, you know, countries that have expressed sympathy or neutrality with their goals
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when blocking all those that they deem hostile. Harrison Preta is Deputy Director of the Asia Maritime
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Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He says Iran
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appears to have opened up an auxiliary channel for vessels. Preta says Iranians are diverting ships
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closer to its coast. Normally, they go right down the middle of the strait, where there's more room.
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This other route is a more narrow channel. It appears to be able to accommodate large vessels because
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we saw the Pakistani tanker, for example, use it. And a few other vessels that are flagged to
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the Marshall Islands, Panama. We've seen a handful of ships use this route in the past couple of days.
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Preta says this is Iran demonstrating it can control the flow of traffic through one of the most
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strategically important waterways in the world. Umayun Falak Shahi, who leads the crude analysis
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team at Kepler, a global trade intelligence provider, says he doesn't expect hundreds more ships
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to cross the strait of Hormuz anytime soon. Even though, you know, we're seeing some tanker
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pass through some non-Iranian tankers. I think most of the industry is still in a very cautious
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mode because of all the other incidents that we've seen, I think, in total Iran has hit nearly
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20 tankers. So I think basically the risk is still too high. The situation around the strait of
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Hormuz could get even more precarious if the U.S. sends and marines to help open the waterway.
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Jackie Northam in PR News.
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That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.