Prime Minister Netanyahu is riding high following the collapse of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority: According to a new poll released by the Globes financial daily, 32 percent of Israeli consider Netanyahu to be the best person to lead the country at this time.
The paper also said that chief Israeli negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has essentially faded into obscurity as far as the Israeli public is concerned. The poll indicates that were elections held today, Livni’s HaTnua party would not receive enough votes to gain seats in the next Knesset.
Apart from Netanyahu, the big winner from the collapse of the political process appears to be MK Zahava Gal-On, leader of the far-left Meretz party. The poll indicates that Meretz would garner 10 Knesset mandates were elections to be held today, up from their current six.
Significantly, there is one sector in which Herzog scored significantly more popularity points than Netanyahu. The haredi community. There, 22 percent of respondents said they preferred Herzog to Netanyahu. Analysts say those numbers are the result of Netanyahu’s support for criminal sanctions for haredi draft-dodgers, The Labor Party, too, would add strength to their parliamentary delegation, with 17 MKs instead of the current 15. But that support has not translated into support for left-wing candidates for the prime minister’s chair: Just 13 percent of the public say they would vote for Labor Party leader Yitzhak Herzog to lead the country.
For other parties, the poll results were a mixed bag of results. Netanyahu’s Likud-Beitenu would win 35 Knesset seats (compared with 31 seats currently), Yesh Atid would garner 14 seats (19 seats in the current Knesset), Habayit Hayehudi would win 12 seats (down from 13) and Labor would win 19 Knesset seats, were elections held today. Shas remained steady at 10 seats and United Torah Judaism would win eight seats (up from seven today).