Panels conducted a poll that was broadcast by Knesset Channel 99 on Feb 27 2014.
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
32 [31] Likud Beitenu
21 [15] Labor
13 [19] Yesh Atid
13 [12] Bayit Yehudi
10 [06] Meretz
07 [11] Shas
06 [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
04 [06] Movement
04 [04] Hadash
04 [04] Ra’am-Ta’al
03 [03] Balad
03 [–] Strong Israel
00 [02] Kadima
61 [61] Right-Religious
59 [59] Center-Left-Arab
Knesset Jeremy Analysis: Labor gains ground on Likud Beitenu. Bayit Yehudi drops from recent polls and Strong Israel passes the current threshold.
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
The good thing with these polls where right-religious stays at 61 and the “right”-part gains is that the part of right-religious block that would oppose a territorial withdrawal grows.
Not a very useful poll from Channel 99. It is odd that they are still polling non-existent parties. Otzma no longer exists. Its website is down. Its Facebook page doesn’t look like it’s been updated since January. Aryeh Eldad announced he is leaving politics in April 2013: http://newsblaze.com/story/20130426074602nurg.nb/topstory.html. At some point, including the party as an option reeks of push polling and diminishes its usefulness. I suppose it does give a bit of a snapshot of current voter attitudes- in this case, a slight stiffening of the right’s spine with regard to security issues.
It would be a more useful poll if it showed Likud and Israel Beitenu as separate parties due to the change in Likud’s rules. That separation looks certain now according to several sources: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/177914#.Uw-WYfldWSo
Another notable thing, Shas is down to 7 again. It seems that the military enlistment issue is not causing the Haredi to close ranks around its politicians. Maybe it is not quite the magic bullet to galvanize their constituents they think it is. 7 seats would be their worst showing since 1992. If Shas really performs that badly (not saying it will) then will the calls within Shas to oust Deri from the party grow even louder? He hasn’t exactly compiled a string of successes in the last year.
yes, for sure someone should tell those pollsters that it is not worthwhile polling Otzma any more; maybe You, Jeremy, could do that if you have some great connections.
looks great that Shas again is down to 7. it starts to be quite usual to see 7-9 for Shas, maybe (moderate) hareidi (sephardim) voters start to see that Shas only keeps them in poverty in the name of the Torah and that Bennett shows that one can preserve the Torah and at the same time integrate into the society. I think actually what scares the religious leaders and yeshiva heads is that the power they have over the hareidi community is about to start to slip.
1) I am not totally convinced that Eldad is through with politics. I know that Ben Ari/Marzel/Ben Gvir plan to run in the next elections, regardless.
2) It doesn’t matter if it is Strong Israel or a different name, the poll shows the number of voters who are (currently) to the right of Bayit Yehudi. Panels has been polling Strong Israel consistently in their surveys. Prof. Menachem Lazar said that he saw a small gradual climb over the past month or so.
3) I know many people who voted Shas because Rav Ovadia told them to, simple as that. Now that he is gone, many secular/traditional Shas voters are returning to their previous voting patterns (Likud or Mafdal/Bayit Yehudi).
4) I think the Haredi leadership is focusing a lot of effort into Sunday’s “million man rally”. They are busing entire yeshivot to the event. It will be a test to see how many people really object to the Shaked Committee. If we see 100K or 200K instead of 800K, well that might also translate into another drop for Shas.
I wonder if the threshold bill is next for the Knesset. I know it passed its first reading. They had 3 legislative objectives for the early part of the year- Equality of Service Bill, the Referendum Bill, and the Sustainable Government Bill. The first two are well on their way but the threshold bill seems to have sort of disappeared. I know that Movement is at odds with Likud-Bayit Yehudi-Yesh Atid over the exact percentage (Livni wants it to be lower of course) but they don’t need any of Movement’s MKs to pass it. I wonder if it will pass with a slim 62 MKs (31 Likud, 19 Yesh Atid, 12 Bayit Yehudi) and if it might cause Movement to begin looking for the exits. Hopefully, they pass it soon so we can see how it affects the polls.
ye, that would be great. in this poll it could probably put 4-5 parties outside the Knesset.
One of these days the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael will return to voting in Knesset elections in higher numbers. At that point the right majority will weaken. In addition should Likud and Y”B redivide, there is no guarantee that Lieberman will not be willing to work with Herzog – of the 11 Y”B mk’s perhaps 6 at least would be open to territorial compromise.
yes, probably Lieberman would be willing to work with Herzog and some of the YB MKs but before that the Likud nationalists should take over Likud, get Bayit Yehudi into LIkud and pressure YB nationalists (like Shamir,…) to join this rightwing alliance.
I wouldn’t read too much into Lieberman’s recent “conciliatory” comments. He was just unruffling Kerry’s feathers. If Lieberman’s party splits, his days as a major cabinet minister are over. I think it is most likely that IB and Likud run separately, gets a small bump in total seats and then join in a coalition that looks very similar to the present one along with Bayit Yehudi. Nothing radical. Maybe enough extra mandates to comfortably keep Livni out. The Likud-IB relationship has been amicable. Their “divorce” seems like a strategy to increase mandates. Just my own opinion, I don’t see how Herzog can be PM without some weird combinations. A left-wing coalition would be Labor-Yesh Atid-Meretz-Movement which is only 48. Even if Lieberman takes all 11 seats with him, it’s still not enough. The Haredi aren’t going to join a government that is even more hardline about enlistment/employment and the Arab parties don’t participate at all. Lieberman undoubtedly knows his future is closely tied to Netanyahu. Plus, his party is unlikely to split given that its members are hand-picked.
sure, this is how it will go. i was just speculating for speculation’s sake. and probably YB will not break up (i think it is strange that he picks these guys that have such a different opinion from himself!), Lieberman will follow Netanyahu, who wants to continue to be a likudnik and not create a new party just to get this peace deal done.