Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Bibi Has Massive Lead Over Rivals: Poll

Running Away: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a massive lead in a new poll. No wonder he plans to call early elections. Image by getty images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can rest easy after reading the results of the latest Haaretz-Dialog poll: Not only does he trounce all his rivals on the question of who is most fit to lead the country, but an absolute majority of Israelis reject the aspersions cast on him last week by former Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin.

Judging by this poll, Netanyahu is the only candidate with a realistic slot of becoming prime minister after the election slated to take place in another four months.

Asked which candidate is most suited to hold the job, 48 percent of respondents said Netanyahu. That is considerably more support than the other three candidates received put together.

His closest rival, Shelly Yacimovich (Labor ), got only 15 percent support. Next came Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu ) with nine percent, and finally Shaul Mofaz (Kadima ) with six percent. That is a blow to Mofaz, who has been presenting himself as Netanyahu’s only realistic rival.

The prime minister’s strong showing on the suitability question, combined with all the polls showing his Likud party winning about 30 Knesset seats, prove he knew what he was doing when he decided last week to call early elections.

Facing no serious rivals, he had no reason to wait; the last thing he wanted was to endure another summer of social protests.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.