Judging by video posts on social networks, the US demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rarely draw more than a few dozen protesters, despite the costly investment in promotions and the spectacular projections on the walls of Alcatraz Prison in California and the UN Building in NYC. Despite the disappointing showing, American and Israeli Media have devoted about half their attention to the protesters’ shenanigans and the other half to the admittedly spectacular achievements of the prime minister: a promising meeting on AI with Elon Musk, a jovial meeting with President Joe Biden that ended with an invitation to the White House, and undeniable statements from the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about his desire for peace with the Jewish State.
Each one of Netanyahu’s achievements this week merited considerable coverage, and yet, media consumers have been treated to an endless stream of noisy footage of small groups carrying Israeli flags and screaming embarrassing slogans.
So, how did rank-and-file Israelis feel about the protests against their leader on his state visit to America? On Friday, Ma’ariv published the poll results: in response to the question: Do you support or oppose protest actions against Benjamin Netanyahu in the US during his visit there? the answers were: support – 36%, oppose – 53%, don’t know – 11%.
Further questions revealed that responders who supported the US protests were mostly opposition voters: 72% of voters for the opposition parties supported holding protest actions against Netanyahu during his state visit to the US, compared to only 7% of voters for the coalition parties.
Only 19% of the voters for opposition parties opposed protest actions against Netanyahu during his visit to the US, compared to 85% of voters for the coalition parties.
The survey was conducted over the Internet, between September 20-21, with 507 respondents constituting a representative sample of the adult population in the State of Israel aged 18 and older, Jews and Arabs. The maximum sampling error is 4.3%, making this survey, especially considering the small number of respondents, dubious.
Direct Polls on Thursday published a survey for Channel 14 using a larger pool of respondents from the same population groups, 809, with a 3.9% maximum sampling error, asking their opinion on Netanyahu’s visit.
A whopping 61% said it was important and beneficial, 32% said it was unnecessary and yielded no achievements, 7% didn’t know.
93% of coalition party voters said the visit was important, and 60% of opposition party voters said it was not.
According to the Direct Polls survey, if elections were held today, these would be the results:
Coalition:
Likud – 31
Shas – 10
United Torah Judaism – 7
Religious Zionism – 5
Otzma Yehudit – 5
Opposition:
National Camp – 27
Yesh Atid – 16
Israel Beiteinu – 6
Ra’am – 5
Merez – 4
Hadash-Ta’al – 4
Netanyahu’s coalition would receive 58 mandates, compared to the entire opposition’s 62 mandates.
Without Hadash-Ta’al, a potential left-leaning government also has only 58 mandates.
Both the extremist Arab party, Balad (2.6%), and the extremist Jewish party, Labor (1.8%) do not cross the 3.25% vote threshold.
