Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is arguably one of the least popular politicians in Israel today.
True, some of Netanyahu’s supporters continue to counter anti-government protests with the familiar chant “Bibi is king”, but opinion polls hardly attest to such slogans.
According to an opinion public poll released by Maariv on November 2, only 27% of all Israelis believe that Netanyahu is the best person to lead Israel at the moment.
This means that Netanyahu has lost the trust not only of the majority of Israelis but of nearly half of his traditional supporters as well.
As Netanyahu continues to lose support among Israelis and his own traditional constituency, Israel’s opposition leader, Benny Gantz, is gaining more support among Israeli voters.
The Lazar Research Institute poll, conducted for Maariv, concluded that nearly half of all Israelis – 49% – believe that Gantz is the right man for the job.
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Two explanations can offer insights into why this is the case:
One, hate for Netanyahu at the moment is automatically translating into admiration for anyone who has challenged the prime minister’s authority in recent months.
Two, Gantz comes from a military background, and as is often the case in Israeli society, the army is naturally elevated during times of war and security crises.
The Maariv poll involved a random sample of 522 Israeli adults. It has a margin of error of 4.3%.
The main conclusion from the poll is that as Netanyahu and his Likud party are losing ground among Israeli voters, Gantz and his National Unity Party are picking up these numbers.
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— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) November 3, 2023
Practically, this means that if elections are held in Israel today, the National Unity Party would win 36 seats in the Knesset, thus tripling its current number of seats. Meanwhile, the Likud’s seats would drop from 32 to 19, according to the poll.
Of course, all of this happened within the context of the Israeli war on Gaza. Not only is Netanyahu blamed for failing to protect Israel during the Hamas attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on October 7, but he is also failing to achieve anything militarily meaningful in Gaza at the moment.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
