Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his mother arrive for a court hearing in the libel case against Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi at the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, September 11, 2023. (Photo: Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett would defeat Netanyahu’s Likud party if he led a right-wing party in Israel’s next election, according to a new poll released Friday by the Maariv news channel.
The poll, conducted by Dr. Menachem Lazar in collaboration with Panel4All, predicted that a possible Bennett-led party would receive 21 seats in such a future scenario, two more than the Likud’s 19 seats. According to the poll, the National Unity Party, led by former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, would receive 14 seats. The poll also predicted that Bennett could potentially secure a coalition of 67 Knesset members if he worked with the current opposition parties.
If the poll results are correct, the coalition led by Netanyahu would receive only 46 seats, far below the 61 seats needed to form a government.
According to the Maariv poll, Bennett would win a whopping nine seats from undecided voters, a group that has reportedly grown due to growing popular dissatisfaction with Israel’s political leadership and its handling of the war in Gaza and the conflict with Iran and its terrorist proxy groups.
However, the poll predicted a very different outcome if Bennett did not form a new party and run for prime minister.
If Bennett decides not to re-enter Israeli politics, the opposition’s lead would shrink to 59 seats, compared to 51 for the coalition currently led by Netanyahu. The poll predicted that without Bennett, Netanyahu’s Likud would become the largest party with 22 seats, while National Unity would receive 21 seats.
Israel is currently facing an attack on multiple fronts from various Iranian-backed terrorist proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. However, the poll shows that 57% of Israelis believe that the Israel Defense Forces could only handle multiple fronts if it had direct support from the United States. In contrast, only 29% of respondents argued that Israel could handle multiple fronts without help from the US.
Regarding the political tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, 47 percent of respondents said they opposed Gallant’s dismissal, while 27 percent were in favor.
In June 2021, Bennett became Israel’s prime minister after leading a diverse coalition of left, right and Arab parties. However, Bennett’s government ended after just one year due to policy disagreements within his diverse coalition.
Following the unprecedented Hamas invasion on October 7 and the massacre of 1,200 Israelis, Bennett strongly supported the Israeli military’s operations against Hamas and later against Hezbollah. As a political rival of Netanyahu, Bennett avoided public criticism of the Netanyahu government until recently.
However, Bennett recently called for new political and military leadership in Israel during a conference organized by the Israel Hayom newspaper in Herzliya, outside Tel Aviv.
Bennett sharply criticized the Netanyahu government’s handling of the war.
“We need change. The leadership is not good – it does not have good values,” Bennett said. specified.
“I have come to the conclusion that it has to be done. The leadership has to be replaced… the political leadership and, frankly, the security leadership as well. These are people I love, but they also have to be replaced,” the former prime minister argued. Bennett also criticized Netanyahu for focusing on Hamas and Hezbollah instead of the Iranian regime.
He argued that the State of Israel had failed its citizens and the Jewish people in preventing the attack in October.
“On October 7, the State of Israel failed in its fundamental mission – to be a safe state for the Jewish people,” Bennett said.
