Poll Finds Most Israelis Want Netanyahu to Quit Before Next Election

A Channel 13 News poll released Friday found that 58% of the public believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should step down and not run in the next election, whose final date has not yet been set and is roughly four months away. Among coalition voters, 18% said Netanyahu should not run again.

The same survey asked Israelis to grade the outgoing government. A majority, 52%, rated it badly, 24% called its performance average, and 17% said it was good. Among coalition voters, only 14% gave the government a bad rating for the past four years under the right-wing coalition.

The poll also tested who is seen as better suited to lead against the Iranian threat. Netanyahu and Yisrael leader Gadi Eisenkot were tied at 37% each. In head-to-head matchups with Naftali Bennett or Avigdor Liberman, Netanyahu still led, but by a slim 5-point margin.

In a separate Channel 13 survey published in the main evening edition two days earlier, Likud under Netanyahu remained the largest party with 22 seats if elections were held then. Eisenkot’s Yashar party won 20 seats, overtaking Bennett and Yair Lapid’s Yachad list, which received 17. The Democrats under Yair Golan and Yisrael Beytenu under Liberman won 11 seats each, Shas 9, Otzma Yehudit and United Torah Judaism 8 each, Hadash-Ta'al 6, and Ra'am and the Religious Zionist Party 4 each. The Reservists, Balad, and Blue and White fell below the electoral threshold.

In bloc terms, the current opposition led by Eisenkot reached 59 seats, Netanyahu’s coalition 51, and the Arab parties 10. If Eisenkot and Bennett merged, the list would win 35 seats under Eisenkot’s leadership or 31 under Bennett’s, and in both cases the Reservists would enter parliament with 4 seats, giving the opposition 61 seats under Eisenkot or 60 under Bennett.