Based on these numbers, the next coalition will include Likud, Bayit Yahudi, Israel Beyteinu, Shas and UTJ totalling 63 seats. Kahlon will join bringing the total to 70 seats. That leaves Livni and Lapid. Will either be invited? Will either join? Ted Belman
The scent of possible early elections has not caused a meaningful shift in the public’s poilitical preferences, according to the latest Knesset Channel poll by Panels Politics.
The poll gives Likud 22 seats, leaving it as the largest party. It is followed by the Jewish Home under Naftali Bennett, with 17 seats.
In third place is Labor with 14 seats. It is followed by Yesh Atid, with 10, and Meretz with 9. Yisrael Beytenu would have 8 MKs, as would hareidi parties United Torah Judaism and Shas.
The new party founded by ex-Likud minister Moshe Kahlon is down from previous weeks with 7 MKs and Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua just barely makes it into the Knesset, with 4 seats – down from 6 at present. Any further weakening would leave her below the minimum threshold required for entering the Knesset.
The Arab parties, which were concerned that they would not pass the threshhold for entering the Knesset, appear to have nothing to worry about in that respect. Hadash receives 5 MKs, and Balad and Raam-Taal each receive 4.
@ Bear Klein:
BK, I too have opinions, most of them strongly held and many of them contrary to what most other people think. By now, I must seem like an open book to everyone who reads these comments in Israpundit.
But when I consult the results of a political preference poll, I try to be careful to avoid analyzing such results from the standpoint of my own preferences and opinions; because to do otherwise would cause me to block out of my consciousness what the polled publics have on their minds. There are times to express one’s own opinions and other times when it is wise to just shut up and listen.
That is why I wrote that, while my preference for the leadership of the State of Israel is not Binyamin Netanyahu, I think the evidence is clear that he is in fact the leader preferred by the greatest number of Knesset voters in the State of Israel.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:Actually, no argument.
Polls reflect a broad view of opinion. Individual opinions are individual and just that one’s own perspective, whether another agrees with the individual opinion or not. The article and discussion were based on a poll.
Of course one is entitled to view things from ones own perspective and others can choose to accept this perspective or not based on emotional and other reasoning.
In a sense, I suppose, there are assumptive misunderstandings in this discussion. For instance, it always annoys me to no end when for example the hack politician in the bloody british commons are debating for example recognizing the state of “pfouliswine”. You can count on some lime flavored rubbish stating with typical pompous arrogance that obviously this bill is supported by israelis as I have here a letter signed by respected academics and business leaders leading newspapers and rabidnate in Israel…my point is they do not understand Israelis, Israeli Democracy and the open no holds barred debates in Israel. It is very easy for us in The US to try to imagine what it is like to have to defend your family, friends and countrypeople in a never ending war, since 1948 the state of war has never ended. So if Israeli veterans who have paid the price have a political perspective, as an American who made aliyah in good faith in 1983, I respect it even if I disagree, because I could very well be wrong. In some ways a little knowledge is worse than none at all. If I had to bet my life on it, I would side with those who walked the walk. I’m with Yamit. He is the genuine article. He is not the only one around here who has undoubtedly put their lives on the line COUNTLESS TIMES and who know what is actually going on and what exactly has happened.
@ Bear Klein:
BK, I’m not trying to take sides in an argument between you and Yamit. We all have our own opinions, and none of us can be expected to walk in lock-step like a bunch of military recruits.
The important thing about educating oneself from public opinion polls is to avoid the traps of self-delusion. As I commented, I don’t like Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister. I would probably prefer Rivlin, the new president, to serve as prime minister, because his policies more or less mirror mine in regard to firming up Jewish control of Shomron and Yehuda, and because I think he would be firmer in dealing with the foreigners who want to squeeze Israel back into the 1948 armistice lines. But based on my own analysis of this particular round of polling, it is obvious that Netanyahu, and because of him, Likud as well, are firmly in political control of the State of Israel.
I also want to say that I have researched Netanyahu’s military service background in Zahal. I didn’t know before, but I know now, that Netanyahu, like his great brother Yonatan, had performed years of service in Sayaret Matkal, Israel top-rated special forces units. Both of them undertook and led their troops in dangerous long-range penetration reconnaissance operations as well as rescuing Jewish hostages, which is what got Yonatan Netanyahu killed in the great Entebbe raid in 1976. As for Binyamin Netanyahu, he was seriously wounded as a leader of another Sayaret Matkal raid.
For that, which is service to the Jewish nation at a level that I never have been called upon to undertake, I honor both these Jewish fighters, even if I am unsatisfied with Binyamin Netanyahu’s overall performance as prime minister. But the Jews of Israel decide at the ballot box who shall lead them, and I therefore hope that if he is in fact to remain Israel’s leader, then Yonatan’s younger brother Binyamin shall lead the Jewish state and Jewish nation in a manner befitting a hero.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
As Arnold Harris indicates the polls, actually all of them done recently differ from your opinion.
http://knessetjeremy.com/category/knesset/polls/
@ yamit82:
Yamit, the follow-up question asked in the recent poll that you cite was:
“Who is most fit to be Israel’s prime minister?”
Responses:
28% Netanyahu
12% Bennett
11% Herzog
9% Livni
8% Liberman
6% Kachlon
2% Lapid
19% none of the above
I have helped design large-scale public opinion surveys as part of my former work as a regional planner, so I have learned the importance of measuring opinion even more carefully by using more than one question to get at a related result. And what the results of the first and second questions of the Knesset Channel Poll tells me is that Netanyahu is firmly in the saddle as leader of the State of Israel, as strongly today for Likud as David Ben-Gurion was in his era for the Labor coalition. On the Jewish nationalist side of the Knesset, the combined poll preferences supporting Bennett, Liberman, and Kachlon come up two percentage points short of what Netanyahu pulls. As for the Berzog, Livni and Lapid, none of them individually or collectively would be able to attract enough Knesset backing to form a government.
As I have commented many times on Israpundit, I do not trust Netanyahu to take a fully independent stance in dealing with Obama, Kerry, Indik and anybody else who thinks they can interfere with the policies or destiny of the sovereign Jewish state of Israel. Nonetheless, Netanyahu is one Israeli leader that the voting majority of Israel will back. I suspect he will remain in power until, like Ben-Gurion, he tires of the back and forth arguing and resigns his leadership role.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ Bear Klein:
If BB remains the head of the Likud the Likud might get if they are lucky 12 mandates. They will not be the party to form the next coalition, at least the first one to try.
BHegin destroyed the Likud when he opened it up to non ideological mostly Sephardim. They voted Likud more because of their hatred towards Labor. Those with a strong nationalist ideological leanings were either marginalized or forced out of the Likud.
What is important in polls are trends. In every poll for quite a while Likud is first, Bayit HaYehudi (Jewish Home) is second, and the right and religious parties take about 70 seats. Livni at best gets 4 seats and Yesh Atid looses a lot of seats and takes around 9 down from 19.
Saying all this polls are a snap-shot in time and are subject to change on the real poll (election day).