Polls Show Bennett Slumps to Single Digits as Likud Leads

Two new Israeli television polls published Thursday show Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud strengthening and Naftali Bennett’s political project weakening sharply. In a Channel 12 poll, Likud rose by one seat to 23 and remained the largest party, while Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar held at 21 and Bennett’s Beyachad fell to 18. The Democrats won 10 seats, Shas, Otzma Yehudit, and Yisrael each got 9, United Torah Judaism kept 7, Hadash-Ta’al rose to 6, Ra’am dropped to 4, and the Religious Zionism party stayed just above the threshold with 4. Below the threshold were Blue and White led by Benny Gantz at 1.8 percent, Balad led by Sami Abu Shahadeh at 1.7 percent, and the Reservists led by Yoez Hendel at 1.6 percent.

In the same Channel 12 poll, the coalition rose to 52 seats and the opposition, including the Arab parties, reached 68. The poll also tested a joint list of Blue and White, the Reservists, and Dedi Smhi, and found it would pass the threshold with 5 seats, taken from both blocs. In that scenario, the coalition would fall to 50 seats and the opposition, without the Arab parties, would have 55. The poll also examined a joint Bennett-Eisenkot list: with Bennett at the top it would win 34 seats, while with Eisenkot leading it would win 39.

On the question of who is best suited to be prime minister, Eisenkot again led Netanyahu, 38 percent to 36 percent, though he was down 1 point from the previous poll. Netanyahu led Bennett 39 percent to 31 percent, and led Avigdor Liberman 38 percent to 25 percent. The poll also found 43 percent think Iran is winning in the recent US-Iran negotiations, versus 18 percent who think Israel is winning, and 29 percent who do not know. Sixty-two percent opposed a deal between Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox parties, while 54 percent said Israel should attack Beirut again despite President Trump’s opposition, and 52 percent said Israel was right to launch the recent round of fighting with Iran, including 80 percent of coalition voters.

A separate Channel 14 poll, conducted by Shlomo Filber and NEXT DATA, showed an even steeper collapse for Bennett. It gave Likud 33 seats, Yashar 20, and Beyachad only 9, the first single-digit result since the merger was announced. In that poll, Shas had 11 seats, Otzma Yehudit 7, the Democrats and Yisrael Beiteinu 9 each, United Torah Judaism 8, the Joint List 5, Ra’am 5, and Religious Zionism 4.

Channel 14 said the right-wing bloc held a clear majority with 63 seats, compared with 47 for the left bloc, while the Arab parties totaled 10. Blue and White remained below the threshold at 1.8 percent. On prime minister suitability, Netanyahu led with 48 percent, Eisenkot had 35 percent, Bennett fell to 10 percent, Liberman had 6 percent, and Gantz 1 percent.