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(JNS) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of conservative and religious parties continues to lead in a new poll, with the premier’s Likud Party forecast to win 33 Knesset seats if an election were to be held now.
\Direct Polls, which accurately predicted the results of the Jewish state’s most recent general election on Nov. 1, 2022, surveyed a representative sample of 499 Israelis on Feb. 27. (The margin of error is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%, Direct Polls said.)
If a vote were to be called now, Netanyahu’s coalition would secure 63 mandates out of the Israeli parliament’s 120, up one since the Feb. 13 Direct Polls survey but one fewer than it won in the 2022 general election.
The opposition would take 57 seats, including 10 for the Arab parties, according to the poll, conducted for Israel’s Channel 14 News.
After the Likud, Yair Golan’s The Democrats received the next most projected seats (16), followed by the Yisrael Beytenu Party (15), Shas (10), the National Unity Party (nine), United Torah Judaism (eight), Yesh Atid and Otzma Yehudit (seven each), and Religious Zionism, Ra’am (aka the United Arab List) and Hadash-Ta’al (aka Hadash-The Arab Movement for Renewal) (five each), per the latest Direct Polls survey.
In head-to-head matchups as to who would be best suited in the role of prime minister, Netanyahu defeated National Unity Party’s Benny Gantz, 46%-to-18% (33% of respondents said neither was suited).
When choosing between Netanyahu and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, 47% said the longtime Likud prime minister was best suited to lead the Jewish state, 22% said Lapid and 31% said neither was suitable.
A Direct Polls survey reported by Channel 14 News on Jan. 16 found the Likud’s popularity dropping sharply amid the impending ceasefire with the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza, securing only 29 seats, down five since a previous survey published on Jan. 2. Excluding that poll, Netanyahu’s coalition has been showing a consistent climb upward by Direct Polls.
From ZOA:
“ZOA’s supporters include members of every Jewish stream – including Reform Judaism. I can assure you that many Reform Jews strongly disagree with [Rabbi] Pesner’s views, notwithstanding Pesner’s effort to portray himself as representing the entirety of Reform Jewry,” ZOA President Mort Klein wrote in a letter, which further details his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shared by Huckabee – rejecting the concept of Israeli “occupation” as well as the general “historical concept of Palestinian Arab people.”
Zionist organization of America President Morton Klein, a longtime Trump supporter* and perhaps his most vocal advocate among the Jewish establishment, wrote to senators in response endorsing Huckabee (whom the organization honored in 2019), while noting how his organization was “appalled” by Pesner’s missive.