This book is a product of the surveys carried out under the auspices of the National Security and Public Opinion Project of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, of which the author is director. The project, initiated in 1984, monitors Israeli public opinion on issues related to national security.

The questionnaires were composed by project researchers, and data were analyzed by them; the fieldwork, including pretesting and sampling, was done by the Dahaf Research Institute, headed by Dr. Mina Zemach. The 1988 and 1992 surveys were also supported by a grant to Michal Shamir from the Sapir Center for Development of Tel Aviv University. The Department of Political Science of the University of Haifa provided support for the 1992 survey.

The surveys were based (unless otherwise noted) on samples representing the adult Jewish population of Israel. These did not include individuals from kibbutzim or from the territories occupied by Israel after the Six Days war of 1967. An exception to this rule was the special supplementary sample of 119 West Bank residents conducted in 1990. Use was also made of a special sample of 300 kibbutz members collected in 1962. These special samples were analyzed separately and not comingled with the national samples.

The dates of the project's surveys were: (1) June 1985; (2) January 1986; (3) December 9, 1987–January 4, 1988; (4) October 1988; (5) March–October 1990; (6) March 16–31, 1991; (7) June 1–21, 1992; (8) January 1–15, 1993 and (9) January 11–February 9, 1994.