Poll shows Religious Zionism party would soar if headed by Ben-Gvir

A Channel 13 poll finds that if far-right MK Itamar Ben-Gvir takes the helm of the Religious Zionism party from current leader MK Bezalel Smotrich, the party will win 13 seats in the coming election, compared to a predicted 10 under Smotrich.

The extra three seats would shuffle the political map and give Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu 60 seats in his right-wing religious bloc of parties — still one short of a majority.

With Smotrich predicted to bring in just 10 seats, Netanyahu would have just 59 seats in his bloc, according to the poll. Netanyahu’s Likud would get 34 seats, followed by Yesh Atid with 22, Blue and White/New Hope 12, Religious Zionism 10, Shas 8, United Torah Judaism 7, the Joint List 6, Labor 6, Yisrael Beytenu 6, Meretz 5, and Ra’am 4.

The Yamina party now led by Ayelet Shaked was not predicted to cross the electoral threshold for entry into the Knesset.

Israeli TV polls are notably unreliable, but nevertheless often steer the decision-making of politicians. The poll, conducted by Prof. Camille Fox, sampled 703 respondents with a margin of error of 3.8 percent.