Five days before Israel’s snap election, people who have seen Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu close up say he looks weary and, behind his controlled façade, shocked to discover that his Likud party faces the real possibility of being thrown out of office on March 17. At a meeting of the party faithful, Wednesday, March 11, he warned – not once but again and again – that if they don’t get a move on fast, Israel could be stuck with “Bougie and Tzipi” [Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni co-leaders of the opposition Zionist Camp] as prime ministers.
The former Labor party keeps on overtaking Likud in opinion polls – not by much but consistently. When the figures hit 24-25 Knesset seats to his party’s 21, Netanyahu finally bestirred himself to go stumping across the country.
He hasn’t yet lost the race for another term in the prime minister’s office, but he will need to pull some rabbits out of his hat and aces from his sleeve if he wants to be chosen by the president as the most credible candidate for forming the next government. Herzog may get there first.
This campaign has held a couple more surprises and others may be in store in the short time remaining.
Future, led by Yair Lapid (former finance minister), has shot up from a single digit to 12-13 in the same opinion polls. He is thinking seriously of setting up a centrist bloc straight after the election results are in, along with the former Likud Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon who struck out with his own Kulanu party (11) for its first campaign, and former Likud partner, Avidor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beteinu.
This threesome believes that together, as the largest political grouping, they can persuade the president to designate Lapid to try and form a government coalition.
Against this pretty far-fetched background, Lieberman (currently foreign minister) has been going around saying he expects to be defense minister in the next administration. Kahlon has high hopes of the treasury.
This alliance of small parties with big ideas is giving both Netanyahu and Herzog nightmares in the sense that collectively they may be in a position to determine which of the two is designated prime minister.
Depending on the outcome of an election, which it must be said is still up for grabs, the two may still opt to combine to set up a unity government with the premiership rotating between them.
Netanyahu owes his current dire straits to seven causes:
1. For too long he has belabored the Iranian nuclear issue, which may be a hot topic in Washington, but no longer holds the interest of the action-oriented Israeli voter. His rivals point out that he has been talking about it for six years but done very little, and what he has done can’t be revealed. No future Israeli leader can be expected to do more. And so, absurdly, a nuclear-armed Iran has become a non-issue in the very country most threatened.
2. If Netanyahu counted on his spectacular performance before the US Congress to win him the election, he miscalculated. TV screens and front pages at home pushed aside scenes of cheering American lawmakers to make way for unsavory peeks into alleged petty misdemeanors – often trumped up – committed in the household of Netanyahu and his wife Sara. The poison built up insidiously in the public consciousness.
3. The media might have been forced to give more space to Likud leaders had Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon made intelligent
presentations of their security policy. They might have gained popular ground by pointing to their policies which, by restraint and prudence, were holding back the real menaces besetting the country at every hand: Palestinian radical Hamas, which has been prevented from setting up West Bank rocket positions against Tel Aviv; Hizballah in Lebanon and the creeping Iranian military presence on the Golan.
By avoiding this course, Likud relinquished its strongest card, the security ticket, the only one on which Netanyahu has experience and credibility as prime minister, when compared with any of his rivals, especially the less than macho Herzog.
4. Likud’s leaders also slipped up badly by neglecting to present a remedial program for festering social ills, such as the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots, the young couples hard put to support families, or first-time voters for whom affordable housing and prices are distant dreams. Contacts with a suffocating bureaucracy make more enemies.
The soundest economy in the West and the country’s first functioning cross-country road and rail system don’t cut it.
4. Likud left it far too late to start electioneering in earnest. Only this week, did Netanyahu start rushing to the rescue in a tardy bid to bring a dull and sluggish campaign to life. The Israeli street responded in kind. In contrast, wherever a prospective voter turned, he and she found Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett (pro-settlement Habayit Hayehudi leader) and Kahlon (whose numbers have risen to 11) selling their platforms on every doorstep.
5. Netanyahu is also finding that challenging a sitting American president is no vote-catcher in Israel – even if national security at stake. Although Washington’s Middle East policies may be fairly criticized, any political hopeful seen to jeopardize US friendship may expect to pay the price at the ballot box.
The weekend edition of the English-language Jerusalem Post and its companion Hebrew language Maariv Sof HaShavua have published a poll taken last Thursday, by Panels Research Polls, showing Likud, Beit HaYehudi and the other parties likely to join a Netanyahu-led coalition back on top over Labor+Livni+Lapid+Meretz+Arab List, 67-3 Knesset seats. See the results and commentary here:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Hostilities-in-North-give-Likud-boost-in-latest-Post-poll-389496
Poll results show Likud 25, Labor+Livni 24, Beit Yehudi 14, Joint Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 11, United Torah 8, Kulanu 8, Shas 7. Meretz 6, Yisrael Beitenu 5, Yachad+Otzma under 3.25 percent.
Also in the weekend JP and other sources:
1) Netanyahu has publicly offered the finance ministry job to Kahlon if the Likud-led coalition leads the coalition-building, which Herzog has refused to make any such offers at this pre-election stage. Not discussed in this issue of JP but highly relevant is that the only preconditions related to defense and foreign policy that Kahlon, whose main focus has been revamping the Israeli economy, is that he has “red lines” he will not cross regarding subdivision of Jerusalem or giving up Israeli control of the Jordan Valley. These caveats strongly suggest that Kahlon, who split away from Likud to form his own party, would be far more comfortable in a right-of-center government.
2) A report was aired on the US-based Fox News channel Sunday morning broadcast panel discussion show about the now well-known effort by an American organization with ties to the Obama administration that has been spending money attempting to unseat Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel. The panel reported that a poll had been taken in Israel concerning this now-uncovered scheme, and that most Israeli respondents strongly disapproved of what they see as a foreign and hostile attempt to subvert Israel’s otherwise-democratic national election process.
What, if anything, do any of you Israpundit commenters based in Israel know about that poll?
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
@ bernard ross:
Generally it is accepted as for now that the united trash
may get a marginal number advantage. I am not sure.
What is accepted is that unless tens of millions are pumped by the US government to bribe and sabotage, Obama’s candidates here cannot form a government.
@ ArnoldHarris:
This is a credible poll. Most of the others are, and this is reported everywhere. cut to paid orders.
Statistically our poll is significant to the voters in the North and to those elsewhere in Eretz Israel intelligent enough to consider what they are being fed otherwise.
Will the outcome be represented by our poll? No. The US criminals from every section of the Hussein Obama gangs and the US taxpayer cash are bribing, sabotaging, undermining and distorting.
In time we will address those issues as may be required.
OK, let no one be fooled: Obama and his paid cohorts, call them prostitutes, former Labor party keeps on overtaking Likud. It is the polls trying to demoralize the electorate without any real chance of forming the next government. A despicable bunch of traitors, topped of by that nausiating Livni b….h.
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
SHL:
Not to deny the usefulness of this literally last-minute poll, but what does a poll of only the population of northern Israel tell us in respect to the overall vote for the Knesset on Tuesday? In order words, specifically how generalizable to the Israeli population universe is this large sample based on geographic selection?
I’m not trying to play wise-ass here. I really would like to know, and I think you have indicated some connection you may have to the organization that sponsored the poll, and/or the one that conducted the poll.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ SHmuel HaLevi 2:
I received this from Truth Provider. I think I have seen this video in this forum before. I am sure someone post it a couple of weeks ago. Here it goes again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wbH5KVPrPo
Watch it is important
No rest for the weary eh Ted? Crunch time. ATTN: Hashems Prayer Warriors – NOW is the time to get serious!!
Obviously the world doesn’t want to hear the truth that Bibi speaks about Iran. They also probably fear he will launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the short term consequences of Iranian retaliatory actions. I get that they don’t give a damn whether Israel’s destroyed, but you would think foreign governments would concern themselves with their own self preservation. Who does Europe think Iran’s long range ballistic missiles are aimed at?
The fact that foreigners want Bibi defeated should be incentive for Israelis to vote for him.
Foreign governments frenzy to defeat Bibi means he is the right man to lead Israel.
They hate strong, proud Jews who stand up and defend themselves. They prefer Jews as weak, pitiful, compliant victims. They want an Israeli PM who will dutifully take marching orders from Washington and Brussels.
Shouldn’t foreign money in campaigns be illegal? Israel needs to change its campaign finance laws.
SHmuel HaLevi 2 Said:
and it will be hailed as a vote for democracy and unity
@ Eric R.:
This is strictly a pay for votes scenario and all can happen. Logically Obama’s folk should not be able but there is a huge psycho bang working 24/7 to mow down the Jewish vote. Conclusively the renegades owned by Hussein Obama WILL accept Islamic votes to gain government. And nominate mortal enemies to critical State functions.
Even if Obama’s puppets win more seats -let’s say they beat Likud 24 or 25 to 22 – do they have any chance of cobbling together 60 seats without the Arabs? All the math I’ve seen says no way.
Final report.
Cumulative poll including nearly 17000 data entries yield the following.
Undecided 17%.
Results given with the following tolerances for all:
Plus or minus 1
Data collected in the North of Israel only.
Likud; 23
Obama-Livni-Hertzog: 22
Jewish Home: 14+
Muslim united list: 12
Ein Atid: 11
Jewish Orthodox List: 9!
Israel my Home: 6
Mr. Kohalon: 6
Meretz: 5
Rav Yishai-Otzmah: 5
Shas: 4+
The still undecided are mostly Jewish. They control enough mandates to turn the platter over at will.
The poll does not include any data from the Center and South.
Final result of our young people run Poll are almost ready.