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March 20th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
The Israeli press is reporting the last polls before next Tuesday’s election and they show Benjamin Netanyahu in a commanding position. His party has far and away the largest support of any party, with 29-32 seats, and though the anti-Netanyahu parties are polling at as much as half the parliament, or 60 seats, they appear to be in thorough disarray.
Most importantly, Israelis overwhelmingly want Netanyahu as prime minister. Per the i24/Israel Hayom Poll:
When asked who was the best candidate to serve as prime minister, 45% picked Netanyahu, and 25% picked [Yair] Lapid, followed by 13% who said Gideon Sa’ar, 12% who said [Naftali] Bennett, and only 5% who picked [Benny] Gantz.
Netanyahu’s challenges seem to be melting. Gideon Sa’ar left Netanyahu’s party to challenge Netanyahu, but his party has plummeted from 20 seats in polling to 10, per 124/Israel Hayom. And though Naftali Bennett was said to be the possible kingmaker, his party promises it will form a rightwing government, not one headed by Yair Lapid.
The polls don’t offer a clear path to power for Yair Lapid’s centrist party, Yesh Atid, which polls at 18 seats, well behind Netanyahu’s Likud Party at 29 seats.
Lapid has been the hope of American liberal Zionists to replace Netanyahu because even though Lapid is pro-settlements– as are all centrist Israeli pols– he would work with the Biden administration toward a two-state solution, say pro-Israel lobbyists here.
Another poll has even worse news for Yair Lapid. “The latest poll I see is from Direct Polls,” Jonathan Ofir reports. “This morning, their result is this:
Likud 32 (we haven’t seen 32 since Feb 1st)
Lapid’s Yesh Atid 17
Blue and White 7
Lieberman’s Yisrael Beteinu 9
Rightwing religious Shas 9
Bennett’s Yamina 8
Palestinian Joint List 7
Rightwing religious United Torah Judaism 7
Sa’ar’s New Hope 7 (falling further)
Religious Zionism 5
Meretz 4
Palestinian party Ra’am 4
Labor 4 (relatively low, they’ve been mostly around 5-6 lately)
“By this one, it’s a no brainer for Likud,” Ofir says. “It gets to 61 (32 + Shas 9 + UTJ 7 + Yamina 8 + RZ 5).”
So if the numbers hold, Netanyahu would surely get the nod to form a new government.
And if Netanyahu falls short and Lapid were to be offered the same opportunity, he would depend on highly-diverse political elements, per the i24/Israel Hayom poll: rightwing Gideon Sa’ar at 10 seats, the Joint Arab List of Palestinian parties at 10 seats, rightwing settler Avigdor Lieberman’s 8 seats, centrist Benny Gantz’s 4 seats, and the traditional Zionist left, of Labor and Meretz, with 10 between them. A governing scenario would, if the polls hold, likely require a defector from Netanyahu’s bloc and the “outside” support of the Palestinians, i.e., they would not be part of the resulting government.
American liberal Zionists have compared Netanyahu to Trump, and said both countries must get rid of their rightwing leaders. It looks as if the U.S. has accepted that Rx but not Israel.
Netanyahu’s potential coalition includes a strong showing by Religious Zionism at five seats in the poll. This is a racist Kahanist party that traditionally was legally barred from even running.
Jonathan Ofir has shown the trend: Israeli politics continue to move rightwards in this election. He credits Netanyahu’s recent rise to “the COVID ‘success’ of the vaccination program for Israelis. I think time has been working for Likud, and I think it’s logical many people are feeling that Bibi liberated them, and they want a strong leader.”
Of course these are just polls, and they do show a large number of Israelis waiting to make up their minds. Still, they seem to continue the pattern of the last 12 years in Israeli politics: pro-settlement leaders are dominant in the government. Because Jewish Israeli voters want them to be.
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