Polls Show Netanyahu, Right-wing Surging in Wartime Israel

Two new polls show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surging politically in Israel, despite pressure by Democrats in the United States, and left-wing protests in Israel, to force new elections and a change in government

Bloomberg News reported on a new survey by Israel’s Channel 12:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is starting to regain his popularity after struggling politically for more than a year, out-polling main rival Benny Gantz for the first time since the war against Hamas started in October.

A Channel 12 survey conducted on Wednesday of 500 voters representing a cross-section of Israeli society asked “Who is better suited to serve as prime minister?” It found 36% chose Netanyahu and 30% [main rival Benny] Gantz. The margin of error was 4.4%.

Those results were confirmed by another poll from Israel’s Channel 14 — the Israeli equivalent of Fox News in the United States. It found that Netanyahu’s Likud Party is gaining strength and would receive 27 seats in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset, if an election were held today. Gantz’s party would only receive 19 seats. Together, right-wing parties would be able to form a bloc of 58 seats, while left-wing parties would have 52 seats, and Arab parties the other 10.

President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have tried to push Netanyahu out, as have left-wing groups in Israel — some of which have funding from the U.S. government. The Israeli public feels otherwise.

The main reason Israelis are rallying to Netanyahu is that they support his policies of defeating Hamas and refusing to allow the creation of a Palestinian state as a result of the war, lest doing so reward the terror attack of October 7.

By opposing Israel’s military operation to destroy the last Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah, and by insisting on the creation of a Palestinian state, the Biden administration has, ironically, strengthened Netanyahu domestically.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.