Anu Koivunen, a media researcher at the University of Turku, on Monday stated to YLE that the survey results are very surprising given the nature of media reporting on the war in Gaza.
“[In Finland] the reporting has been very cautious and muted, there hasn’t been much room for it. When the Gaza conflict has been discussed, it has been discussed in a reserved fashion. The reports have highlighted the brutal attack by the terrorist group Hamas and the right of self defence of Israel,” she elaborated.
Finnish reporting, she summarised, has largely reflected the approach of western states to the situation. In Sweden, for example, reporting has been more diverse given the higher number of correspondents and connections to both Israel and Gaza.
The survey found that men and women have pronouncedly different views on the war. Over three-quarters, or 76 per cent, of women disapproved of Israeli actions compared with 43 per cent of men; seven per cent of women approved of Israeli actions, compared with 35 per cent of men.
Koivunen estimated that the gender divide stems from the high number of civilian and child casualties in the war, but stressed that qualitative data would be required to offer a definitive answer. Over 34,500 Palestinians have been killed and 77,500 have been injured in Gaza since 7 October, according to the local health ministry, which operates under Hamas.
“The results also reveal what people relate to. Do you relate to military power and strategy or civilians? I’m sure that explains the result at some level,” said Koivunen.
Concerns about the civilian death toll have heightened this week, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeating on Tuesday that Israel intends to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, the southernmost city on the Gaza Strip. The city is shelter to more than a million Palestinians.
Views on Israeli actions also correlated with party affiliation, according to the poll by YLE.
Supporters of the Left Alliance were particularly critical of the actions, with only two per cent approving, followed by supporters of the Green League (5%) and Social Democrats (9%). The Finns Party was the only party with a voter base that largely approved of the actions, with 52 per cent doing so. It was followed by Movement Now (40%) and the National Coalition (35%).
The share of respondents who were unable or unwilling to comment on the issue was the highest among supporters of the Swedish People’s Party (40%) and Christian Democrats (37%).
“There’s always a variety of views behind percentages,” reminded Koivunen. “I’m sure that attitudes toward the war in Gaza are explained by general attitudes toward discipline and order or, on the other hand, to civilians, human rights and suffering.”
All political parties, she estimated, will have a variety of opinions on the conflict, with the survey revealing the averages. One should therefore not draw firm conclusions about differences between the supporters of different parties.
Koivunen also viewed that the government-opposition dynamic explains in part the correlation between party affiliation and views on Israeli actions in Gaza. If Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s (SDP) five-party coalition was still in power and it had made the same kind of decisions at the EU level as the government led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (NCP), she explained, Social Democrats, Greens and Left Alliance supporters could be more sympathetic to the course of action taken by Israel.
Taloustutkimus collected 1,106 responses for the online survey on 22–23 April.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
