Friday will mark the final day for election surveys, so expect a whopping number of fresh polls, all of them, most likely, with an identical map of the political blocs: the right with 60 mandates, the left with 56, and the Arabs with 8. But what remains to be seen is the shifts inside each bloc, and those have been constant, as several parties are siphoning votes from their supposed allies “inside the armored troops’ carrier,” as Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu put it this week.
Channel 13’s Tuesday night survey conducted by Camille Fuchs shows the most dramatic siphoning job on the part of Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid: the second-largest party is drawing ever closer to the Likud, at the expense of Labor and Meretz. Lapid now has 27 mandates, compared to Netanyahu’s 31. It leaves Lapid’s potential coalition partners tittering on the edge of the threshold vote, each with only 4 mandates, but Lapid has thrown caution to the wind. With Benny Gantz challenging him for the PM’s seat, claiming he can bring in the Haredi parties (the Haredi parties say he’s delusional, but they have been meeting with his people), Lapid is hell-bent on establishing his domination over the center-left, come what may. And Gantz, for his part, is slipping to 11 mandates.
On the right, it’s the pair Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir who are siphoning off all their potential coalition partners: Likud, Shas, and United Torah Judaism. So far, they haven’t been able to push past 14, but even 14 makes them the second largest party in the bloc, and a power Netanyahu cannot trifle with. And in the case of the right-wing bloc, unlike Lapid, whose growth jeopardizes his allies, the growth of the Religious Zionism/Otzma Yehudit faction will be good for all their allies because it would guarantee that Netanyahu not stray from the right-wing agenda and bring in, say, Benny Gantz. Should he try, Smotrich and Ben Gvir will abandon him, and Netanyahu won’t have 61 mandates.
For that reason, the more RZ gets, even if it’s at the expense of its future coalition partners, the better. But the final outcome next Tuesday does not depend on the right-wing nor the left-wing voters, the main decider will be the Arab voter. Currently, about 48% of the eligible Arab voters plan to come to the polls on Tuesday. If this turns out to be the real number, then Balad, the vehemently anti-Zionist, pro-terrorism party stays below the 3.25% vote threshold and there will be only two Arab parties in the Knesset, and there will be a stalemate between Netanyahu and the left, with an edge for the right, but not 61.
If more than 48% of the Arab voters hit the polls on Tuesday, say, 52%, or even 54%, there will be three Arab parties in the Knesset, and the right will have only 58 or 59 mandates. Lapid will then forge some kind of an agreement with the Arabs to guarantee him 61 mandates, at least initially, and Israelis will be looking at four years of Arab repression, as Lapid capitulates to one demand after another, and Gantz cantors happily toward establishing a Palestinian State with a freeze on the entire settlement enterprise. If you think I’m kidding, look up the expulsion of Gush Katif: the Knesset legislation to forcibly remove some 8,000 Jews from their homes in one day was passed by a majority of 59 to 40, with 5 abstentions. A Lapid government supported by 12 Arab MKs, with Labor and Meretz ministers, will have the power to push back Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria and eliminate all the “illegal outposts” with brute force. They will be unstoppable.
But if fewer Arab voters show up, say 46%, or even 44%, Netanyahu will be Israel’s next prime minister, as the Balad votes are discounted, and, God willing, one of the two remaining Arab parties also drops below the threshold. Those discounted votes should give the right its desired 61st mandate.
Having said all of the above, here are Camille Fuchs’s Tuesday night’s poll results:
Right-Wing Camp
Likud 31 + Religious Zionism 14 + Shas 8 + United Torah Judaism 7 = 60
Left-Wing Camp
Yesh Atid 27 + National Camp 11 + Israel Beiteinu 7 + Labor 4 + Meretz 4 = 52
Arab Parties
Ra’am 4 + Hadash-Ta’al 4 = 8
By the way, Ayelet Shaked, who told a press conference on Tuesday night that she is forging ahead – “Polls? we don’t need no stinking polls” – gets 2.2%, about 1% less than what she needs, in a very rigid marketplace of votes. Shaked has hit 3% only once, in a Channel 14 survey. Since then, it has been between 1.5% and 2.5%. You have to admire Shaked’s tenacity, but her decision cannibalizes her reputation and her future. She could have taken a hiatus from politics, teach somewhere prestigious, write a book, and return in a few years, refreshed and ready for battle. Balad has 2.3%.
Survey respondents were asked if they had determined whom to vote for: 65% are certain, 29% are still deciding––which explains the shifts inside the blocs, while zero votes appear to move between the blocs.
The survey included 801 respondents, with a 3.5% sampling error.
