Election polls show little change, continued deadlock after party slates finalized

Election polls released on Wednesday, the day after parties submitted their official slates for the October 27 election, indicated that the finalization of the electoral landscape hasn’t much affected voters’ preferences and deadlock between the two blocs persists.

Polls by Channel 12, Channel 13 and the Kan public broadcaster showed neither the pro- nor anti-Benjamin Netanyahu bloc winning a 61-seat majority of the 120-seat Knesset.

Channel 12’s poll, in line with previous ones, found that the bloc of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu parties would win 57 seats, while the bloc supporting the prime minister would nab just 52. Arab-majority parties would win the remaining 11 seats.

Channel 13 and Kan’s polls both had the blocs tied, at 53 and 52 seats each, respectively. In Channel 13’s poll, Arab parties won the remaining 14 seats, while in Kan’s poll, 12 seats went to the Arab parties while the remaining four went to the centrist, nonaligned Reservists party led by Yoaz Hendel.

Channel 12’s poll had Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist opposition party Yashar leading with 25 seats, up from 22 in the last poll, followed by Netanyahu’s Likud with 21, the same result as last week. Channel 13 and Kan also had Eisenkot leading, with 22 and 24 seats respectively, followed by the Likud with 19 and 21 seats respectively.

B’Yachad, the joint slate led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, is stable at 13 seats, according to Channel 13 and 12, while Kan put the faction at 12.

The Democrats polled at 9-10 seats in the three polls, while Yisrael Beytenu stood at 7-9.

Among the current coalition’s parties, United Torah Judaism polled at 8 seats in all three polls and Shas at 7. Otzma Yehudit was at 6-9, while Religious Zionism was at 5-6.

The new People of Israel party, whose leader, Ofer Winter, has said he would back Netanyahu, was at 4-5 seats.

The Arab Joint List, comprising Hadash, Ta’al and Balad, polled at 7-8 seats, while Ra’am was at 4-6.

Channel 12 also polled respondents on who they preferred as prime minister. According to the poll, Netanyahu has slightly closed the gap with his rival since last week, gaining three percentage points since the previous poll, with 42 percent of respondents preferring Eisenkot compared to 38% who prefer the incumbent.

Seventeen percent of respondents answered that neither is suited to the role, while 6% answered that they didn’t know.

Put against Bennett, Netanyahu leads 38% to 35%, while against Liberman, Netanyahu leads 37% to 25%.

Channel 12’s poll surveyed 504 people and had a margin of error of 4.4%. Channel 13’s poll surveyed 1,119 people and had a 2.9% margin of error. Kan’s poll surveyed 2,300 people and had a 4.2% margin of error.

Opposition said pressuring Gantz to quit

According to the Ynet news site, senior officials in opposition parties are pressuring Gantz to quit the race, viewing him as an obstacle to the bloc’s victory in the election.

Gantz has distanced himself from the rest of the opposition’s so-called “change bloc,” calling for a broad unity government. He hasn’t expressly stated that he won’t sit in a government led by Netanyahu, and said he wouldn’t hand Eisenkot a majority for a coalition.

A senior official in the opposition bloc told Ynet, “Gantz is motivated by personal frustration at his political situation.” The Blue and White leader, who was Netanyahu’s main rival in elections in 2019 and 2020, is now polling below the electoral threshold.

“From his perspective, there is no problem with Netanyahu continuing to serve as the next prime minister,” the official asserted.

An associate of Gantz insisted to Ynet that the politician would “run to the very end,” backing the Blue and White leader’s argument that his message of unity would result in a broad Zionist government.

In response to the report, the party said: “We will make sure that a narrow and extremist government is not established here that relies on the draft dodgers, and not one that relies on the votes of the Arab parties, because that is not ‘change’; it is more of the same thing, the same conception that is leading the people of Israel into the abyss and civil war.”

‘Wolf in sheep’s clothing’

The far-right Otzma Yehudit party on Wednesday filed a request with the Central Elections Committee to disqualify the Islamist Ra’am party and its leader, Mansour Abbas, from running in the upcoming election, alleging that the party “rejects Israel’s existence as a Jewish state” and supports an “armed struggle” against it.”

Among the evidence cited in Ben Gvir’s 39-page request is a Registrar of Associations report on “Aid 48,” a nonprofit affiliated with Ra’am, which the petition said “details transfers of funds and cooperation” between the nonprofit and “terrorist organizations.” Otzma Yehudit alleged that Aid 48 and another Ra’am-linked nonprofit, “Humanitarian Deeds,” transferred millions of shekels to terror groups.

The allegations concerning Aid 48 follow a Justice Ministry letter published last year stating that it had found grounds to seek the nonprofit’s dissolution after an investigation concluded that it had transferred funds to organizations proscribed over alleged terror ties.

The petition further alleged that Ra’am has an “ideological connection to the Muslim Brotherhood” and claimed that Abbas himself is a member of the Islamist organization. Abbas has denied being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has rejected terror and has said he accepts Israel as a Jewish state.

The petition pointed to past statements by Abbas as proof he was “speaking in two voices,” accusing him of adopting a moderate tone for Israeli audiences in order to avoid disqualification while conveying a different message to Arab audiences.

“The wolf in sheep’s clothing must be thrown out of the Knesset,” said Ben Gvir, himself a frequent past target for potential disqualification. “It is time to enforce the law and disqualify the terrorist organization called Ra’am and the man who heads it, Muslim Brotherhood member Mansour Abbas.”

In an unprecedented move, Abbas last month announced he would be running with Yoav Segalovitz — a Jewish, Zionist former police official, lawmaker and deputy minister — as his No. 2 on his party list.