The last polls ahead of Tuesday’s election have been published. Netanyahu’s Likud-Beitenu joint ticket could lose as many as eight seats, but the right-wing coalition he is projected to lead is still strong. Meretz is trending up, while Livni is losing support. We have updated out Poll Tracker with the surveys published over the weekend. Election laws forbid publishing polls in the days immediately prior to the vote, so this is likely the last round of numbers we will see from the various polling firms, at least publicly (the parties continue to conduct internal polls sometimes). This pie represents the…

Two new election polls came out yesterday, both telling roughly the same story: the Likud-Beitenu party is losing some voters to the National Religious Party and to Otzma Le'Israel, an extreme faction led by former Kahane man Michael Ben-Ari. Both parties are identified with the settler movement (though settlers are well represented in Likud as well). According to the last poll, the National Religious Party (Habayit Hayehudi) will be the Knesset's third largest party following the elections. NRP has enjoyed new momentum since electing Naftali Bennet as its leader. Bennet, former chief of staff for Netanyahu, has launched a successful viral campaign…

Underneath a new Knesset election poll published today by Haaretz, there was a surprising disclaimer: "due to lack of time, the Arab parties weren't surveyed." The reference is to the three non-Zionist and mostly Palestinian Knesset parties: Ra'am-Ta'al, Balad and Hadash, which were nowhere to be found in the charts Haaretz published. Together, they have 11 Knesset seats, including one held by a Jewish member of Hadash. Some polls published in the Israeli media tend to group those parties into one entry, titled "Arab parties." At other times, they ignore them completely. Often pollsters do include Palestinian citizens in their surveys…

I would like to address some of the responses to my previous post ("It's all about the blocs: Understanding Israeli election polls"), since they raise an important issue regarding the difference between an analysis of ideology and political behavior. Several readers challenged my use of the right vs. left division of the entire political system in Israel, claiming it to be simplistic and not matching the ideology of some of the parties. Several examples were made, mostly regarding what I called the center-left bloc. As "Kolumn9" rightly noted, Kadima is an offspring of the Likud, and ideologically could just the…

The first couple of polls since the announcing of the new elections are out. Here are the numbers: Maariv (Teleseker): Likud 29; Kadima 7; Israel Beitenu 15; Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid) 11; Labor 19; Shas 10; United Torah Judaism 6; The Jewish Home 8; Meretz 4; Ra'am-Ta'al 3; Hadash 3; Balad 4; Atzmaut (Ehud Barak) 2. Haaretz (Rafi Smith): Likud 29; Kadima 6; Israel Beitenu 13; Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid) 17; Labor 17; Shas 10; United Torah Judaism 5; The Jewish Home 5; Meretz 4; Ra'am-Ta'al 5; Hadash 4; Balad 2; Atzmaut (Ehud Barak) 0. > Click here for 972's Knesset poll…

The political parties, along with media, will sell a story of a tight battle, but the Likud-led majority is as stable as it was four years ago. A quick breakdown of the upcoming elections, expected to take place in roughly ninety days.  Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday evening his intention to hold early elections in roughly three months. Elections were due to take place in November 2013 in any case, but Netanyahu estimates that he will have trouble passing next year's budget in the current Knesset. The following is an excerpt from Netanyahu's statement tonight: Today, I finished a round of…

Despite a recent rise in the polls, Labor's leader seems determined to follow failed policies of former party leaders. As the Labor Party under Shelly Yachimovich rises in the polls, many observers are wondering whether the journalist-turned-politician could be the leader that the center-left camp is searching for, one that could challenge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the ideological and electoral front. Labor is now polling 25 seats. A similar result in the general election would be the party's best since 1999, when Ehud Barak led it. Yachimovich differs from Netanyahu on her economic views, and she was so far…

After only 70 days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's mega-coalition shrank back to 66 members of Knesset yesterday. Kadima, the Knesset's biggest party, decided to leave the government over the failure to reach an agreement on national draft reform. A few takeaways: 1.    The entire maneuver that resulted in the national unity government was a mistake by the prime minister, who had been about to announce elections on September 4, and win them easily. Currently, elections are scheduled to take place in October 2013, but common wisdom says they will happen six to nine months from now, in the winter or spring…

The secret to understanding Israeli political behavior lies in the widespread (and fundamentally evident) notion that any change to the status quo is likely to bring more harm than good. Even passionate advocates of Israeli policy wonder at times – often in private, but sometimes also in public – why the Israeli government doesn't show a bit more urgency in pursuing a way out of the West Bank. Israel, the saying goes, is faced with two options: A two-state solution and a one-state solution. The first option involves removing most of the settlements from the West Bank (but not necessarily…

Since the shift in the American policy, to one which is much more hospitable to Netanyahu and his government, every time the prime minister returns from Washington, his numbers jump. The last poll (from Haaretz) sees the Likud with 37 seats, which means a very easy job assembling the next government. Yet note this: Despite personal support for Netanyahu, a clear majority of the public - 58 percent! - believes that Israel should not strike Iran's nuclear facilities on its own, even if the United States decides to avoid military action. In a country where military operations usually get very…

Recently published polls regarding the social protest reveal potential for major political changes in Israel, though not necessarily immediate ones The Tent Protest has been dominating the news cycle in Israel for two weeks, and now there are also a couple of interesting polls regarding its possible political impact. While it would be unwise to try and predict what sort of effect these unprecedented demonstrations will have on Israeli politics, the polls do confirm some of the hunches we had in the last three weeks, and most notably, a potential for far-reaching changes in the political system in the years…

A reader's guide to democracy's dark hour What does the law say? Basically, the anti-boycott law allows all those who feel they have been harmed by a boycott, whether against Israel or an Israeli institution or territory (i.e. the settlements in the West Bank) to sue the person or organization who publicly called for it, for compensation. This definition is very broad—even a simple call not to visit a place falls under it—and most important, the prosecutor plaintiff doesn't even have to prove damages. You can read the full text of the law here (it's not long). The important part…

According to a recent survey, most Israelis simply don't know that the Jordan Valley, the future Palestinians state's only non-Israeli border, is part of the occupied West Bank. This trend confirms that retaining an Israeli presence in the valley is not likely to become a wedge issue in Israel any time soon. A poll conducted by our esteemed Dahlia Scheindlin (for ACRI's Action a Day campaign) indicates a sweeping majority of Israelis - 63.5%, to be exact - think the Jordan valley is part of Israel; in other words, not part of the West Bank; or, in plain words, don't…