Poll: 66% of Israelis want Netanyahu to leave politics, 85% support Oct. 7 probe
Bennett favorite by far to lead potential right-wing dream team, survey finds; 37% of PM’s voters think he shouldn’t seek reelection; 66% think Haredim must serve in IDF
Some two-thirds of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should leave politics and not seek reelection, according to a television poll published on Friday, after a tense week in Israeli politics following the High Court’s history ruling on drafting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military.
The poll cemented former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s standing as the leader of a potential new rightwing alliance. It also indicated that a majority of Israelis support Haredi conscription along with an investigation into the failures of October 7.
Sixty-six percent of poll respondents said Netanyahu should not compete in the next elections, compared with 27% who thought he should, and 7% who don’t know.
Among voters for parties in the premier’s right-religious bloc, 37% opposed Netanyahu’s seeking reelection, though 53% said they think Israel’s longest-serving leader should stay in office, Channel 12 said.
Two polls in the past week found that the elections would be upended by a faction led by four of Netanyahu’s former proteges: ex-prime minister Naftali Bennett, Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, New Hope party leader Gideon Sa’ar and former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen.
Surveys from Channel 12 and Channel 13 found such a formation could pick up the largest number of Knesset seats in an election; the channels’ polls awarded the party 25 and 33 seats, respectively, of the Knesset’s 120.
In Channel 12’s Friday poll, Bennett emerged as by far the favorite to lead the right-wing dream team. The former prime minister was considered the preferred leader by 30% of respondents to the Channel 12 survey, including 50% of opposition voters.
Liberman and Cohen followed with 10% each, and Sa’ar picked up 4% support. The remaining respondents said they either did not know or favored none of the options.
Bennett, who retired from politics in 2022 after the demise of his uneasy, diverse coalition, has hinted at a return. He received a boost when a recent Channel 12 poll found that respondents considered the former premier to be better-suited than Netanyahu to the job.
Asked whether a state commission of inquiry should be formed to probe failures leading up to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, 85% of respondents said yes, 6% said no, and 9% said they didn’t know. Among Netanyahu’s supporters, the percentage of respondents calling for a probe was only slightly lower, at 76%, 11%, and 12%, respectively.
The High Court of Justice on Friday gave the state until July 28 to explain why it hasn’t yet formed a state commission of inquiry into Israel’s failures leading up to Hamas’s October 7 massacre and the subsequent war in Gaza.
The government has insisted that the probe waits until the end of the war. Members of the government have largely refused to accept responsibility for failures leading up to the shock assault, which saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take over 250 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara recently called out Netanyahu over his efforts to legislate alternatives to a state commission of inquiry. Such commissions are headed by retired High Court justices, and Netanyahu is said to want to forestall a commission headed by former Chief Justice Esther Hayut, a harsh critic of the government’s contentious judicial overhaul.
Baharav-Miara ordered the army on Tuesday to begin drafting 3,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students after the High Court decided against their community-wide exemption from military service.
The decision has stoked tensions in the coalition, as secular members have been infuriated by their religious colleagues’ insistence on the exemption even as reservists are called to serve longer due to the war in Gaza. However, threats to the government’s stability have thus far not materialized.
In the wake of the High Court’s exemption ruling, Channel 12’s Friday poll found that 66% of respondents — including a majority of Netanyahu supporters — said that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students must enlist, compared with 24% who disagreed, and 10% who didn’t know.
The poll was conducted by Midgam in cooperation with iPanel. The network did not provide a margin of error or say how many respondents were surveyed.
