New poll shows Blue & White taking commanding lead over the Likud after Netanyahu indictment, with Left widening lead over the Right.
The Blue and White party has opened up a significant lead over the Likud, a new poll released Tuesday shows.
According to a poll conducted by Panels Politics and published by Channel 12 Tuesday morning, if new elections were held today, Blue and White would win 37 seats, four more than it won in the September 17th election.
The Likud, on the other hand, would win just 30 seats, a decline of two seats compared it its current 32.
Blue and White’s seven-seat lead in the poll is the party’s widest margin over the Likud in any poll released since the September elections to the 22nd Knesset.
The left-wing – Arab bloc also gained ground in the poll, and is projected to win 58 seats, one more than the bloc won in September. The right-wing – religious bloc is projected to win 55 seats, the same number it won in September, while Avidgor Liberman’s secular rightist Yisrael Beytenu would fall by one mandate, from eight seats to seven.
The Joint Arab List, which won 13 seats in September, would win just 12 seats if new elections were held today.
The Labor-Gesher alliance would win five seats, down from the six it won in September, while Meretz would fall from five seats to just four if new elections were held today.
On the Right, the Jewish Home-National Union would win four seats, the same number it currently has, while the New Right would double its electoral strength, from three to six seats.
United Torah Judaism would retain its seven seats, while Shas would fall from nine to eight seats.
More than half of respondents (56%) say Netanyahu should not continue as Prime Minister after being indicted on corruption charges, while just 37% said he could continue to serve.
Among Likud primary voters, the overwhelming majority say they support Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s bid to retain control of the Likud, with 88% choosing him as their candidate in the upcoming Likud leadership race. In a distance second is former Jerusalem Mayor MK Nir Barkat, followed by Gideon Sa’ar with 4%.
@ Yoel Ben-Avraham:
This isn’t about lifestyle choice, aesthetics, or inspiration. Without a fair and non-partisan justice system, no one is safe. The railroading of Bibi is Kafkaesque. I am reminded of the last of the 7 Noachide Laws for all of humanity: to establish just courts.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Well Sabastien, you reaffirmed my advice to all who ask me if they should make Aliyah. I tell them:
@ Bear Klein:
Actually, I was thinking more in terms of safety, and I wasn’t thinking about myself, as, in my 60 years, I have had zero interest in ever even leaving Manhattan unless it’s for a gig and I can be back by the next morning, at the latest . (If I were elected president, I would sub out for gigs, fair warning.) If the ingathering of the exiles and not being embarrassed before the world is a priority, then the powers that be in Israel should be made aware that this, more than anything else, makes Israel seem like a Middle Eastern Country, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. What’s the expression? “A shanda fur die goyim.” That’s what it is. I noticed you don’t live full time in Israel, either.
@ Ted Belman:
@ Bear Klein:
@ Bear Klein:
What you are saying here is true and very poetic, but this is the view from the outside. The problems in Israel are getting much worse with time. I talked to many young Israelis, current or former IDF soldiers, who are going to leave or have just left Israel. “The government does not care about us”, they say, “neither militarily nor financially”. They are reluctant to shoot; they are scared and disoriented… What is permissible to Arabs is prohibited to them. They do not feel safe, they do not feel protected. The whole judicial system in Israel is abnormal. Total dictate of Mandelblit is suicidal. What is going on now is terrible, and so familiar, so similar to what is going on in US. “Blogs like Israpundit and the online newspaper focus primarily on the politics and the Israeli – Arab/Muslim conflict.” But it’s the essence of life in Israel, it determines her future. And it’s devastating. In the US at least we do not have rockets falling on our heads…
@ EDDYDEE: Eddy, I am very worried that you might be right.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
the insanity of government in Israel will insure that democracy AND ISRAEL
WILL NOT SURVIVE. The Israeli voters will vote in ARAB RULE.
Now i understand why a certain jewish person said
they know not what they do
He was talking about Israeli voters !!!!
Eddie
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Gerald Ford did the USA a great service when pardoned Nixon, even though he knew it would cost him any chance to be reelected. The USA got to move on from Watergate and stop focusing on it.
Israel and Bibi would both better moving on also.
@ Bear Klein: Certainly an interesting idea. Yes, it might be a solution if Rivlin and Bibi would agree to adopt this “deal.”However, it would anger the prosecutors who obviously hate Netanyahu and are eager to prosecute him, especially after having devoted so much time and effort to building their case.
When former president Katzav commuted the sentence of Yigal Amir’s girlfriend , for having allegedly failed to inform the police that Amir who planning to assassinate the Prime Minister (without going into the case in detail, the charges against her were extremely unfair, and amounted to punishing her for being Amir’s girlfriend), it was not long before Katzav was was charged with and convicted of rape on the basis of extremely dubious evidence, removed from office and forced to spend several years in jail. I believe this was perhaps the most unjust, politically motivated conviction in Israeli history, and that Katzav was innocent of rape. He was guilty of having made sexual advances from time to time toward employees in his office, and thus perhaps might be said to have been guilty of sexual harassment. But numerous other Israeli politicians have done the same thing, without being indicted or having to spend time in jail.
But I have got off the subject. My point is that the “Katzav precedent.” will make Rivlin unwilling to offend the prosecutors. All the more so, because in the past the prosecutors and police have investigated him for alleged corruption, although he was never indicted. If he were to cross the prosecutors, these investigations of him are almost sure to be revived.
@ Sebastien Zorn:Yep, Israel is far far from perfect!
The beauty of Israel is not found in perfect systems or its’ government. It is found in the people and the land. Something someone has to be open to experience.
As I told you have as an adult gone back and forth to Israel and the USA to live during my adulthood for years at a time. I loved Israel when I first arrived in my early 20s even though it was hard and far far from perfect. I was prepared for the challenges when I first arrived by a family friend who had lived in Israel during the 1940s and early 1950s after escaping Austria. He told me about the difficulties I might experience. He loved Israel and wanted to stay but his wife wanted an easier life and they moved to the USA. He liked the USA but missed Israel also.
I love it every time I go back to live or visit for years or weeks at a time. I feel so at home and just relate to the people and country. When I am not in Israel I miss it a lot.
Aliyah is not for everyone it never was. People go to Israel for all sorts of reasons. It is always interesting to hear why people moved from elsewhere especially when they had a choice.
The beauty of Israel is the guy on the bus who you never met before who invites you home to meet his wife and have dinner. It is the lone solider who wants to help Israel so he joins the IDF when he could have stayed in the USA or Australia or South Africa. It is the volunteer who has the lone solider come every Shabat he has leave and has a place for him to wash his clothes, and help him with his adjustment to Israel, even though he and his wife never met this person before and they are not related.
There are many such experiences. One needs to be open to a different life in a different culture but a Jewish/Israeli culture.
Blogs like Israpundit and the online newspaper focus primarily on the politics and the Israeli – Arab/Muslim conflict. That is how many people relate to Israel who have never lived in Israel or spent long periods of time. That is their focus and never have had the opportunity or made the opportunity to learn a new culture and its beauty.
I, for one, would be frightened to make aliya, unless I were fleeing for my life. It’s clear from this that there is no consistent rule of law in Israel. The courts and bureaucrats of the justice system make up the rules as they go along to suit themselves and they disfavor Jews and Jews who stand up for Jews. This looks really bad to me. I wonder if I am alone. Somehow, I think not.
@ Bear Klein:
I like this idea. I gather from this that the President has the power to pardon.
As I have said before, it is imperative for the right block to grow, Bibi must resign and the new leader tmust embrace some of Liberman’s demands. Once done, Liberman and the other anti-Bibi voters can return to augment the right bloc.
What matters is the size of the right block rather than the size of Likud..
.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:At this point in time unless the Likud can get their act together and unify you maybe correct Gantz may become the PM with Lapid splitting the time with him perhaps.
I hope the Likud can get it together but at this point in time I am not optimistic.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
100% Correct, absolutely. Very good post. And you confirmed for me that it was indeed Caroline’s article, where I had thought I saw that Likud had a sure 65 seats plus a likely 4-5 more.
Contrary to Bear, with his uncanny knack of pulling out all sorts of disconcerting info, and who changed the subject by dropping that Gantz was only barely behind in a head-to head at time of indictment announcement…which,, although misleading to the uninitiated and careless readers, mattered nothing, if Likud had retained it’s lead…..
Which was my point.
From VozizNeis American Jewish newspaper. Yet another example of Israeli government’s blatant attempt to supress free speech on the “right,” while tolerating “incitement” by anti-Zionist Arabs and the Left. The charge of “incitement”–sending people for what they say, not for what they have done–is not consistent with free speech. In the U.S., speech is not criminal unless it consists of specific threats, or specifically urging people to commit violent acts. Israel should also adopt this narrower definition of “incitement.”
These “suspects” are being charged with promoting to an ideology, not with urging others to commit violent acts. They are charged with expressing admiration for deceased historical figures whom the prosecutors disapprove of.That, combined with the selective enforcement of the “incitement” laws, makes this yet another sinister act of politically motivated meddling in politics by prosecutors.
@ Bear Klein: Gantz will be PM in any case. Possibly in two weeks; certainly in three months. The entire Likud party will suffer from guilt by association with Bibi, even if his name is not on the ballot.
Of course any party will lose support when their leader has been indicted on criminal charges. And i will lose even more support when the Supreme Court and the Attorney General drop broad hints that they will either force the party’s leader to resign as Prime Minister, and/or refuse to allow him to form a government even if his party wins the election. Even the most die-hard supporters of Bibi, and die-hard supporters of Likud, will balk at voting for a party if they know that the person heading the party’s list will not be allowed by the courts and and the attorney general to serve as Prime Minister. True, the party could select a new leader who has not been indicted (yet) . But this new leader will may not be well known to the public, and will not be able to garner as many votes for the party as the well-known, experienced and widely admired (before he was indicted) leader.
All this is outrageous interference with the democratic process by the lawyers’ fraternity, especially , of course, when the indictment is based on a novel theory of what constitutes “bribery,” that has never served as the basis for indicting a politician for this offense, in Israel or other democracies, over the past. Further constituting illegal and even criminal interference in the democratic process is the resort to constant accusatory leaks from the prosecutors office to the press, in order to prejudice the public against the politician before he has been brought to trial and has a chance to defend himself. Such leaks are actually a criminal offense, but no prosecutor has ever been charged with a crime, and very few have ever been fired, for resorting to this illegal behavior as a meands of obtaining a conviction. Yet Israeli prosecutors have resorted to this illegal tactic for years, not only in Bibi’s case but in numerous other cases involving other individuals who have been under criminal investigation.
When prosecutors and even judges routinely commit crimes in order to send othe rpeople to jail. It is all too obvious that the entire court system has become hopelessly corrupt and in need of drastic reform. This reform must begin with the removal from office of judges and prosecutors who have outrageously abused their power with politically motivated prosecutions and court orders, and have routinely violated the laws of Israel.
several hundred years.
Mandelblit and the Supremes have “appointed” (or “anointed”) Gantz as Israel’s Prime Minister, although this is completely illegal.
Many people don’t understand that the main issue here is not Bibi’s tenure of office, but t he denial of the electorate’s right to choose the Prime Minister by a free vote, with interference by unelected officials who are appointed by their unelected colleagues. Under Basic Law One and Basic Law: Government, the courts and Attorneys-General have no authority to either dismiss or appoint Prime Ministers . Yet this is what they have been doing, although in a slow process, since 2016. The slow process has recently excellerated in speed, however, and is poised to get much faster, and to be completed, no later than March, and probably long before then.
Caroline Glick has pointed out that Bibi was coasting to reelection when the Attorney General announced, in the Middle of the December-April election campaign, that he intended to indict Bibi. Of course suppot for Bibi immediately dropped. This was gross interference in the election process. The holding of closed-door hearings on the charges (accompanied by leaks to newspapers hostile to Bibi) was yet another act of interference. Now the Supremes and the A-G are preparing to fire Bibi outright, although the Basic Law Government is explicit that the Prime Minister, even if charged with a crime, cannot be forced to resign.
Bibi is far more experienced and qualified to lead the nation in these perilous times. But the real issue, which some of my fellow commentators fail to grasp, is whether or not democracy will be restored in Israel, or whether the absolute and lawless rule of lawyer-oligarchs chosen by each other will become Israel’s permanent system of government.
So this poll indicates that only Gantz could become the Prime Minister as things stand in a new election.
Bibi needs to stand aside so that the right has a chance. Otherwise Gantz will be PM.