The final countdown

With four days to go until the election, the Hebrew papers on Friday drum up the suspense with their last-minute polls, last-minute pleas from the prime minister, and last-minute electioneering by pundits.

In their frenzy, the dailies take their gloves off and openly campaign for the candidate of their choice: Israel Hayom, unsurprisingly, encourages Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection and slams the Zionist Union; Haaretz urges voters to bring down Netanyahu in its editorial and props up Meretz; and the front-page op-ed in Yedioth Ahronoth is headlined “He’s Afraid.”

For Yedioth, its final poll before election day — in which the gap between the Zionist Union stands at four seats — dominates the front page. According to the survey, Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union is projected to receive 26 seats, and Netanyahu’s Likud party 22. The Joint (Arab) List follows with 13 mandates, and Yesh Atid and the Jewish Home tie with 12 seats each. Kulanu receives eight Knesset seats, Shas gets seven, United Torah Judaism follows with six, and Yisrael Beytenu and Meretz get five seats. The Yachad party narrowly clears the electoral threshold with four seats. (Several other polls Thursday and Friday have broadly similar findings.)

The paper also quotes various other polls in its first pages. In one, carried out by Calcalist on Thursday, a majority of voters said the cost of living would strongly affect their voting choices (66.9%); most said the Palestinian issue would significantly factor into their decision (53.8%); and more than half said the cost of housing would drive their vote (51.6%).

Slightly less than half said high taxes would considerably affect their vote (47.9%), while 33% said foreign affairs would strongly sway them (and 36.9% said it would slightly influence them), while 32.3% said the Iranian threat was a significant factor, and 31.6% claimed it would influence their vote, but slightly.

Another cited survey, about Arab Israelis and the election, showed that voting rates among the population were projected to rise (61%, compared to 56% in 2013). The majority of Arab Israelis said economic issues should be the main focus of the Joint (Arab) List (77%), while a mere 16% said the Palestinian conflict should take precedence. A big majority also said the Arab list should join the coalition (71%) and most were “optimistic” about Jewish-Arab relations (64%, while 33% were “pessimistic”).

The Arab population was also divided about controversial Arab MK Hanin Zoabi, with 45% saying she helped their community’s cause, 34% saying she hurt Arab Israelis, and 21% saying she neither helped nor hurt the population. (The poll was conducted among 503 respondents, 80% Muslim, 10% Christian, 10% Druze. Margin of error ±3.2%).

The paper also features Netanyahu’s media blitz on Thursday, in which he conceded the housing crisis was ultimately his fault, and said he would not share the premiership with Herzog. In Yedioth, the focus is on Netanyahu’s refusal to interview with Channel 10’s Raviv Drucker (the TV station subsequently canceled the interview).

In a front-page column Sima Kadmon paints Netanyahu as desperate, deceitful, and paranoid — “in two words: He’s A-F-R-A-I-D,” she writes.

“That’s the entire story. Our strong prime minister, who fights Daesh (the Islamic State) and Hamas, and clashes with the US president, is simply unable to deal with tough questions” from the likes of Drucker.

In his interviews yesterday, she continues, Netanyahu came off “as a prime minister with a serious persecution complex, and in his head there are these running scripts in which the whole world came together to topple him from his position, and that also includes states that he cannot name.”

Kadmon also has some less-than-kind words for Herzog, whom she likens to a wind-up doll flailing about aimlessly. “The difference between the two of them is that Netanyahu has no problem going back on his promises, to say something and two days later do the exact opposite. Herzog simply hasn’t learned to do that yet.”

Over in Haaretz, the daily dedicates its editorial to encouraging voters to elect Herzog, or alternatively — for those who “prefer a party that won’t, under any circumstances, join a government led by Netanyahu” — to vote for Meretz.

“The elections for the 20th Knesset give the public an opportunity to change the government and bring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long term to an end. This must be the voters’ goal next Tuesday… Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni, the leaders of the Zionist Union, are a convincing alternative to the ruling party and the prime minister. Herzog is worthy of public credit,” the paper declares.

In a front-page column, Yossi Verter warns against celebrating Netanyahu’s defeat prematurely, writing “It’s not over until it’s over. Past experience shows that the endgame polls can be off-target by as many as 10 seats all told. The tectonic shifts of the last days of the campaign are unpredictable. Both those who are celebrating a turnover and those who are bemoaning failure should wait until the votes of Israel’s merchant marine arrive.” (These ballots are the last to be counted.)

Still, he writes, the tables are turning dramatically in Herzog’s favor, and Netanyahu is stressed. “Until a week ago, it was Herzog who was asked in every interview whether he would agree to serve in a unity government under Netanyahu. Now Netanyahu is being asked whether he will stay in politics if he loses,” Verter notes.

Over in Israel Hayom, the paper spotlights Netanyahu’s interviews, under the headline: “Netanyahu: If you don’t vote Likud, the right-wing leadership will fall.” The paper also dedicates coverage to ex-president Shimon Peres’s support for Herzog, and to a spoof newspaper in Hebrew (Israel Machar — “Israel Tomorrow”). The parody, which is slated to be distributed nationwide Friday and feature a celebration of Netanyahu’s defeat, is (legally) funded by US billionaire S. Daniel Abraham, who also finances the V15 group, it writes.

The publicist behind it has sworn his campaign — for the Harov Hadash group — is apolitical, and many of the people working on it were former Kadima advisers, it writes. Moreover, writer Mika Almog sent out a thank-you to the staff and said he was behind the initiative. “Mika Almog, by the way, is the grandson of Peres,” it notes.

The paper’s Mati Tuchfeld decries the “unprecedented campaign” against the prime minister. While the left-wing parties insist all prime ministers have been attacked during election season, “this is a lie,” he writes.

“There has never been a campaign of this scope. With these funds. With this unified and coordinated message… After the election, when the winner is crowned, then they will remember to admit that in the 2015 elections, we have seen phenomena that were not present in any previous election.”