Poll: 54% of Israelis Say Netanyahu Should Resign

While a new poll shows that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would likely win reelection if new elections were held today, a growing number of voters believe he should resign – including a large number of former Likud voters.

According to the new poll, which was conducted by Panels Politics and published by Maariv on Friday, if new elections were held today, the Likud would win 28 seats – down from the 36 it won in March, but up one seat from last week’s Panels Politics poll.

The right-wing-religious bloc would win 65 seats, up from 58 in the current Knesset, the poll showed, compared to 46 for the center-left-Arab bloc, and nine seats for Yisrael Beytenu.

The Yamina party would become the second largest in the Knesset with 21 seats, down one seat from last week’s weeks, but up drastically from the six seats the party won in the March election.

Blue and White, would fall to just nine seats if new elections were held today, down from 15 seats.

Yesh Atid-Telem, which currently has 16 seats, would rise to 17 seats, while the Joint Arab List would fall from 15 seats to 14.

The chareidi parties were both steady, with Shas at nine seats, and United Torah Judaism maintaining its seven seats.

Meretz was up one seat in the new poll, rising from five seats in last week’s poll to six mandates – twice what the party won in March.

Labor, Otzma Yehudit, the Jewish Home, Gesher, and Derech Eretz all failed to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.

The poll also found that more than half (54%) of Israelis believe Netanyahu should resign from politics. That includes over a quarter (28%) of voters who backed Likud in the March election.

Just 36% of voters say Netanyahu should not resign.