Latest Polls Show Netanyahu’s Support Dropping

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The Israeli political situation is extremely precarious today, with a 50-50 Netanyahu-Gantz government that is extremely non-functional. Nearly every political commentator in Israel believes that 2021 will be an election year in Israel, probably in early 2021. The gridlock has basically saddled the Israeli government from acting in a forceful and decisive manner.

There is constant infighting between Likud and Blue & White in the government. This has added an additional costly hurdle in dealing with the extremely challenging, and damaging situation by the shutdowns of Israeli society.

In this interview, Avia Abelow, speaks with Jeremy Saltan, an advisor to Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Yamina party, on the latest polls showing his boss running neck and neck with Netanyahu. Never before has another right-wing party been polled as a challenge to Likud. The Israeli election cycle may be in for a big surprise in the leadership – if today’s polls continue.

It’s only a poll, and there are still no elections scheduled, yet, but it still reflects a potentially major change.

Benjamin Netanyahu has shown himself to be an extremely effective Prime Minister and campaigner. However, there are millions of Israelis who are deeply impacted by the 2nd lockdown of Israeli society.

Naftali Bennett was the Defense Minister during the first shutdown. That was a very popular shutdown and seemed to have effectively saved the lives of thousands of people. But now that Bennett is out of power, he has largely presented his opinions as an alternative to the present Netanyahu-led government. He has been very critical and claims that Israel needs a coherent message that will lead Israel out of it’s present situation.

Bennett is considered a right-wing alternative to Netanyahu and the Likud. What is very interesting is that the Right-wing bloc has grown from a majority of 65-70 seats (out of 120), and is now approxiamtely 70-75 seats. This is perhaps the more important phenomenon in the latest polls. It will be an interesting year…