Habayit Hayehudi activists, led by attorney Yossi Fuchs, Chairman of the Legal Forum for Israel, are convinced Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is a more capable leader for their party than Chairman Naftali Bennett, one who could help Habayit Hayehudi establish itself as a prominent power in the next Knesset.
To prove their point, Fuchs et al have ordered a poll from one of Israel’s most reliable pollsters, Rafi Smith, and the results backed them up.
Shaked “increases and changes the part supporters,” Smith told Army Radio on Tuesday. “While Bennett attracts his traditional supporters, she draws a different crowd.”
Shaked, who has been Bennett’s partner since the two of them worked for candidate Benjamin Netanyahu, has been an enigma in Habayit Hayehudi: a secular woman in a largely religious party. But, interestingly, while Bennett has been urging his members to part ways with Habayit Hayehudi’s more religiously devout members, MK Bezalel Smotrich and Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel, Shaked and her backers get along with the more “Haredi” party Tekuma faction.
“We believe our public doesn’t have a problem with them,” Fuchs told Army Radio, “We simply need to replace the man at the helm.”
The poll results show that Shaked consistently siphons votes from the competition:
Should the elections be held today, the Likud would get 20% of the vote with Bennett at the helm of Habayit Hayehudi, but only 17% with Shaked. That’s a net loss of 3% to the Netanyahu camp should they face Shaked.
Labor gets 9% of the vote with Bennett, only 8% when competing against Shaked.
Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid wins 19% versus Bennett, only 18% against Shaked.
Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon takes 4% against Bennett, only 3% against Shaked – which means that should Shaked lead Habayit Hayehudi, Ya’alon won’t make it to the Knesset, due to the 3.75% threshold.
Finally, Habayit Hayehudi gets 12 seats come next elections with Bennett as Chairman, and close to 14.5% seats under Shaked. With some luck and threshold-remainder deals with sister parties, Habayit Hayehudi could end up with a whopping 15 seats, probably the third-largest party after Liked and Yesh Atid.
Predictably Minister Ariel doubts the veracity of the poll results, viewing them as nothing more than trial balloons flown up by the Justice Minister’s supporters. “Let her run in the primaries [for Chairperson],” Ariel told Army Radio, “then we’ll see.”
Shaked is probably the most popular rightwing minister today, the only politician in her camp who managed to tame the Supreme Court and clip some of its claws. Should she succeed in blocking the appointment of the next Supreme Court President by seniority, thus denying anti-settlements Justice Esther Hayut the power that has been wielded by the left for some 25 years, Shaked could become a cultural hero, the superwoman who accomplished what so many politicians before her had failed to do.
The above is not necessarily a prediction, but, who knows, on any given election day…
yamit82 Said:
No kidding !!!!!!!!!!!
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I called Bennett BB light during last election cycle and haven’t had any reason to change my mind, if anything he is even more like BB today than in the past… I hate the lying cowardly traitor called BB Netan yoyo.
My hopes are with Shaked. Disheartening if true:
“…Bennett is the last person who should be lecturing about standing up to pressure. As Education Minister, he has given in to pressures and left Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish in charge of the curriculum. He has given the responsibility for civics studies to an extreme leftist, and has completely ignored the incitement taught in Arab schools and in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods – in schools renovated by the Education Ministry, which he heads.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/227659
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She is a wonderful woman especially since she is in politics, seems to be as straight as she’s allowed to be. And modest as well. I don’t know if she’d make a good PM, but certainly -I believe- a good Foreign Minister.
The picture is a good idea whoever thought of it. I think it’s a painting of Joan of Arc, which I saw about 60-70 years ago, and several times since, in books, with Shaked’s head super-imposed on the mailed Maid…..
I think she is made of good stuff, no nonsense! Straight as an arrow !Ayelet Shaked is not full of herself. She loves her people and is not afraid to assert her power to implement what should have been done years ago,but we have too many “shvitzers” wholove themselves more than our brethren and our land, Go for it,Ayelet!
she will loose, look at the winners all ugs. pres high court, former labour leader, terror mouth piece, guess they were all part of an inbreeding coalition. aaaah over here it was to scare little kids ‘get the boggy man,’ In ISRAEL to scare anyone ‘get one of the above.’
:
Yet another proclamation from a false Eliyahu.
@ Ted Belman:
No Bennett will stay leader, They have primaries in Bayit Yehudi. This is how the party is run not by a one off poll.
I’m surprised. I mean she’s awesome. She’s the best. So, why is she popular? When I read, not long ago, that Lapid had a good chance of becoming PM, I thought, wow, the public must be really stupid. Makes the “democratic” part of Jewish and democratic a lot less appealing, don’t it?
You are spot on.
@ veet vivarto:
Will this poll help her get top billing and replace Bennett as the party leader.
I voted for Netanyahu last time.
But I’d be happy to vote for her, should she head the party.
Actually it is a shame that she is not in Likud. She represents Jabotinsky’s values more closely than the current leadership.
With a bit more experience, she could be the next Begin with even greater vision. Perhaps I am overstating her potential, but the potential is there. However she must prove her moxie and leadership in the next election cycle.