Parties opposing Netanyahu would win Knesset majority without Arab parties – poll
Though Channel 12 finds Likud would be largest party, opposition bloc could easily form coalition; former PM Bennett seen as most suitable premier candidate
Parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-religious government would win enough seats to form a new majority coalition if elections were held today, even without the support of the predominantly Arab Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al factions, according to a television survey aired on Monday evening.
Netanyahu’s Likud party was forecast to be the largest in the Channel 12 news poll with 22 seats, down from its current 32, followed by four opposition factions: National Unity with 21 seats, Yesh Atid with 15, Yisrael Beytenu with 14, and the Democrats (a union of Labor and Meretz) with 11.
Taken together, the opposition parties, without the Arab parties, had 61 Knesset seats in the survey, enough for a bare majority in the 120-member parliament.
The next largest parties in the poll were Shas at 10 seats, Otzma Yehudit at nine, and United Torah Judaism at eight. The three factions are all part of the current coalition, together with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party, which failed to clear the minimum vote threshold in the poll.
Rounding out the survey were Arab parties Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am, with five seats apiece, while the Arab Balad party and Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party would also fall below the Knesset’s minimum vote threshold.
In terms of the Knesset blocs, the current Netanyahu-led coalition (comprising Likud, Shas, UTJ, Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism) would win 49 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. Today’s opposition parties would win 66, excluding Hadash-Ta’al, which would likely join neither bloc, with the other five.
The survey also asked respondents how they would vote if a theoretical party led by former premier Naftali Bennett were included among the options, with the results showing that such a party would garner 20 seats, while Gantz’s National Unity would drop to 13.
The coalition parties bloc would also be weakened were Bennett to run, according to the Channel 12 poll, receiving 46 seats compared to the 49 it would pick up without him.
In addition, following the trend of recent polls, respondents indicated that they considered Bennett to be the best-suited candidate for prime minister compared to Netanyahu, preferring him over both Gantz and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.
Asked to choose between Gantz and Netanyahu, 34 percent preferred Netanyahu, while 28% preferred the National Unity leader, with 31% saying neither was the right pick. Lapid was also considered less suitable than Netanyahu, with 29% picking the former and 37% choosing the current prime minister. A further 29% said neither was right.
Bennett, however, had the highest approval rating in a matchup, at 39% compared to 32% for Netanyahu, with the remaining 22% voting for neither and 7% saying they didn’t know.
Israelis vote for parties and do not pick the prime minister directly.
The pro-Netanyahu bloc defeated the Bennett-helmed government in elections in November 2022, winning 64 seats. General elections are not due in Israel until October 2026.
The survey, by pollster Manu Geva, questioned 503 respondents and had a 4.4% margin of error.
