Poll: 40% Want Former Top IDF Heads at Security Meetings

With less than a month to go before the elections, polls show that little has changed among the electorate. If elections were held now, the Likud would get 32 seats and Blue and White would get 31. The right/religious coalition that Binyamin Netanyahu could hope to form a government with would get 57 seats, while the center-left coalition Benny Gantz could build would receive 43 seats. The United Arab List, which in recent days clarified that it will not join any government, and Yisrael Beytenu, which has asserted that it will only join a unity government, would get 10 seats each.

However, the poll by Maariv/Radio 103 indicates that there is a significant segment of the Israeli public that would accept and perhaps even prefer a unity government. Given the tension in the north and the south, security has become a top priority in recent days – and according to the poll, 40% of Israelis would like to see former IDF Chiefs of Staff Benny Gantz, Moshe Yaalon and Gabi Ashkenazi – all leaders of Blue and White – brought into the Security Cabinet to discuss Israel’s situation during this tense period. 39% of those polled opposed the idea, and 21% had no opinion. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu invited Gantz to a meeting of the Security Cabinet that was discussing the situation at the Lebanese border.

From the poll, it is not clear what the impact of the decision by Moshe Feiglin not to run in the elections will have on voters. Previous polls showed Feiglin’s Zehut Party getting just 1.6% of the vote, far from the minimum 3.25% needed for Knesset representation. Hoping to benefit from the decision is Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose Otzma Yehudit party is currently polling at 2.5% of the vote.