Poll Shows Opposition Ripping Itself to Pieces

The ultra left-wing Haaretz newspaper has given up on defeating Netanyahu. “Game Over. Center-left is a fragmented mess.”
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The intellectually bankrupt center-left finally has owned up to its disintegration six weeks before the election. Even the ultra left-wing Haaretz lamented Monday, “Game Over. The center-left bloc is a fragmented mess, while the right-wing bloc has never looked so hale and hearty.”

It published a Dialog poll that apparently was a knock-out punch for the left but revealed no surprises for readers of Arutz Sheva, which has reported ever since the demise of the Olmert government that the Israeli public is moving away from the “center left” and towards the nationalist and religious camps.

If elections were held today, according to the latest poll, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will enjoy the support of 71 Knesset Members:

39 from the Likud and Yisrael Beyteinu combined party list;

11 from the Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) and Ichud Leumi (National Union) merged list of MKs;

18 from the Shas and Yahdut Hatorah (United Torah Judaism) religious parties;

3 from the Am Shalem party headed by former Shas member Rabbi Chaim Amsalem.

The Dialog poll shows that the Otzma Leyisrael party headed by National Union MKs Aryeh Eldad and Dr. Michael Ben-Ari would not win enough votes to enter the Knesset, in direct contrast to the surprising results of a poll posted last week by Voice of Israel government radio that showed the party with the minimum three seats to enter the Knesset. The Voice of Israel poll was carried out by a different polling organization than the one normally used. Similarly, Kadima, which had the largest faction in the current Knesset, would be on the outside with only two projected two mandates.

The center-left, left-wing and Arab parties would be left with a paltry 49 MKs, and only 37 without the Arab parties, many of whose MKs are openly pro-Hamas.

The poll gives Labor 17 seats, nine to Tzipi Livni’s party, six to Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid (Future) party and three to Meretz, the only party that sticks with ideology except for the nationalist Jewish and the anti-nationalist Arab factions.

Echoing Arutz Sheva’s report two weeks ago that Livni’s formation of her “Hatenuah” movement was a “gift” for Netanyahu, Haaretz wrote, “The main accomplishment so far of Hatenuah chairwoman Tzipi Livni is enfeebling two of her sister parties on the center left to the point of oblivion. A good job by all accounts, but Livni has not managed to attract even a single Knesset seat’s worth of votes from the rival camp. MK Amir Peretz’s last-minute enlistment to Hatenuah hasn’t changed the party’s standing in the polls.”

The most blatant blow for the Opposition is that only 17 percent of the polls’ respondents viewed Labor party leader, Knesset Member Shelly Yechimovich as appropriate to be Prime Minister, and an overwhelming 81 percent expressed the opinion that Netanyahu will form the next government.

Complacency could be the biggest enemy of Netanyahu and the nationalist and religious camp, but so far, Hamas has been helping them out. After having won support from Palestinian Authority Chairman and “peace process” hawker Mahmoud Abbas for unity, the terrorist organization openly announced its aim is to destroy Israel.

One young woman living in Tel Aviv, the mainstay of the center-left, told Arutz Sheva she was not surprised at the poll results.

“You don’t know what is happening on the street,” she said. After the missiles on Tel Aviv, even Tel Aviv has woken up.”