Israel’s Election According to the Pollster

With Israel’s election approaching, JPPI fellow and Channel 13 pollster Shmuel Rosner joins the podcast to break down what the numbers are really showing. Which campaigns are working? How many voters are still undecided? Where are the parties gaining — and losing — support? And despite weak polling, does Benjamin Netanyahu still have a path to victory?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm Jakov Katz, and welcome to a new episode of the Jewish People's Podcast by JPPI. The Israeli election campaigns in season are moving ahead in full throttle. The Likud Party held its primaries on Monday and chose the people, its roster, for who will run on its list in the elections that will be held on October 27th. Gaudi Eisencott is still leading the pack in the opposition. Naftali Bennett is dropping, or at least for now, has seemed to stop that drop in the polls as the number two party. But where is this all going? What type of government will be formed after the election? What are Netanyahu's chances at this point to even win? Does he even have a path forward? And what would happen if Isencott, Bennett, Lieberman, Golan, Lapide, everybody else don't manage to get to the much coveted 61? Will they go with the Arabs or will they not go with the Arabs? Will they form minority government or will they not? What campaign is working? Who is more consistent than the other? And what is going to happen to about 10% of the voters who remain undecided? Don't know if they should vote for parties from the current coalition or from parties from the opposition. To break all this down and to kind of give us some of the answers, I'm joined by my good friend and JPPI colleague, Shmuel Rosnar. Schmuel, in addition to the amazing work that he does at JPPI and his writing and journalism and books, he also now is the official pollster for Israel's Channel 13, one of the leading TV stations in the country. So every week he's collecting numbers, data, polling people, and then it's being broadcast on Israeli national TV. So if there's anyone out there who knows the real numbers, the deep dive of the data, it's Shmuel Rosner. And you'll want to hear what he has to say. Some really interesting insights onto what might happen come October 27th. Stay with us. Hey Shmuel, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Great to be here. We often speak here. We speak about political issues, we speak about diplomatic issues and Jewish world issues. But I wanted you here today, we're talking the day after the Likud primaries, the votes as we're recording this are still kind of being counted, but it's already pretty clear what the direction is. And in addition to all the other things that you do, and to our listeners and viewers, Schmuel does do a lot. But in addition to your job, obviously as a senior fellow at JPPI and doing polling for us and the different surveys that we do, you are also now the official pollster for Channel 13, which is one of the main TV stations in Israel ahead of the election. So that's weekly polling of the political parties. And obviously, this is very interesting with everything going on. I mean, everything that happens now, I kind of try to remind people, has to be looked at through the lens or the prism of Israeli politics. So, you know, the Jared Kushner-Nitanyahu meeting. Yes, there's obvious real substance and interests and security needs. And you don't want to fight with Donald Trump, but Bibi also doesn't want to lose more votes. And that's going to be something that's going to accompany us for at least through October 27th.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

So we must remember that Donald Trump is himself a politician. Politicians tend to understand political considerations of other politicians. They tend to understand that the election season is not the time for pressure unless you want to, you know, unless you want to cause damage to the politician that you pressure.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Although I would just I would also say that if Bibi is pushed, it would be interesting to see what he would do. Because on the one hand, you're right, he doesn't want to fight with Trump. On the other hand, he might want to show the Israeli public I stand up to the president. Yeah, he might push back.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

He might push back if he decides that this will. If Trump wants results in Gaza, he knows that results will be, you know, will be much easier to get to after October 27th.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Whether it's Bibi or it's someone else. Exactly. Where are we? We're now, you know, um two months and change away from the Israeli election. This is a dramatic election, right? And and I'm just curious, before we even get into the numbers and kind of the trends that you're seeing, is this really, like I said, is this really a dramatic election? I mean, or do we always say that every time there's an election? I feel uh post-October 7th, first time we're going to vote, this is pretty significant.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

No, I uh most Israelis would tell you that this is not just a dramatic election, but the most dramatic election they can remember. Now it's true that we say about every election that it is a dramatic, dramatic time, but I think this time feels different for many Israelis because of because of the dire circumstances in which Israel finds itself. Uh, remember that even before the war, we had a whole year or almost a year of uh social upheaval, political social upheaval in Israel, with huge demonstrations against the government. Then the war came with all the devastation, and the war is not over yet. So we are going uh to have an election after very, you know, four very difficult years in Israel's history, and many Israelis are saying this is essential, this is crucial, uh, this is the you know the ultimate fight on on Israel's character and future. And I think um I think that we are going to see some of it in the in the the share of people that are actually going to vote. Um, you know, the voting.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

You think there will be a higher turnout, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

There there will be a great turnout, and especially so among uh the uh you know opposition voters. Opposition voters feel the urgency much more so than coalition voters. Coalition voters are somewhat more you know embarrassed by by the current situation or undecided about what exactly they're going to do. But if you look at the energy of uh the opposition parties and the opposition uh voters, you you expect a high turnout in the air. What a high turnout?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

What do we typically get in an election here?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Well, that's a difficult question. We we get around 70% uh lower share uh among uh Israeli Arabs. Israeli Arabs tend to vote in uh in smaller numbers. They you know they're 20% of the population, they can get as as many as 25 seats in the in the Knesset, but they usually get 10 or 12 seats, no more than that, because uh so many of them don't bother to vote. This depends to a large extent on whether whether the Arab parties are going to merge together. When they merge, Arab voters tend to vote in higher share than when they see a split among uh many parties. Before we continue, let me let me mention the the two dates that are of crucial importance now. So we have October 27th, that's the election. Uh this is what we are counting until we get to. And before that, we have September 7th. Now, one of the things that people outside of Israel don't always understand or remember is that in Israel the political ground is always shifting. It's not like the United States when you know two years in advance that you are going to have the Republicans and the Democrats, and maybe you know some independent in between, but oftentimes not even that. Basically, the game is is uh um you you know a long time in advance. You know who the players are, and this is true for the United States and for most other countries in the world. It is not true for Israel. In Israel, uh parties are you know uh built and destroyed, they merge, they split, they change their names, they change their positions, the ground is always shifting. And the concrete date in which this will have to be stopped is September 7th. This is the time in which all parties need to say, okay, this is who we are, this is our list, this is our final composition, and from now on, you know, you have from September 7th to October 27th, it's almost two months, but not even two months. And and this is the time in which the real campaign takes place because of real.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Right, just to illustrate that, illustrate that for us. In other words, what we're seeing right now, we have a Bennett-Lapide party, we have an Eisencott party. It's very possible that on the eve of September 7th or September 7th itself, suddenly Bennett-Lapide breakup, Lapide goes with Isencott, Bennett goes with Isencott, Bennett goes with Lieberman. I mean, who knows how this all plays out.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Both of them goes go with Eisencott, Lapide goes with the Democrat. Everything can happen. And these are the small questions. You have even bigger questions between the two main blocks. You have smaller parties who don't even cross the threshold in the polls. Will they merge? Will they retire? Will they insist on running, even though this means that many voters are going to just throw their votes and will not be counted? Benny Gans is the perfect example, but also the party of Hilly Trupper and Joach Hendel, and the party of a former minister and former ambassador Gilad Ardan. So you have all kinds of small parties that are trying now to cross the threshold and not really, you know, they don't always make it. Some of some of them do make it from time to time, but this is this is a danger zone. So all this must be resolved by you know three weeks from now, by October, by September 7th. Up until then, the the story is mostly about these, you know, ongoing maneuvering. You know, people are looking for the right merger, are looking for the right candidate, are looking for a place in which they can find their place. You know, some very small players can say, well, we can make it on our own, but maybe if we join this or that party and get you know seat number 11 on their list, maybe this will be a net positive for both us and the party. So up until then, everything is really up in the air. But there are some constants that we see that we see in the polls, and the the most important of which is uh relative stability in the balance between what we call the two main blocks.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Now explain explain the explain what those blocks are and explain to us what that stability looks like.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Right. So so one block is is easier to define. That's the block of the coalition. The current coalition. Right. The current coalition. If you take all the people who voted for or still want to vote for the parties that uh uh you know merged to to form this current coalition, that's a block, the coalition block. These are supporters of Likud, uh Tsionudit, Shas, Yaduta Torah, and Utsmayyudit. Five parties.

unknown 11:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

So if people don't know the names, if they they don't know the lead the names of the parties, you got Benjamin Etanyao, you got Pizza Smotrich, Itamar Bengvir, Shas Arye Derry, and Gold Knuff, the head of the United Torah Judaism.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Right. Exactly. So if you take all the people who currently say that they support the coalition bloc, uh this block is fairly distant from achieving what it needs to form the next coalition. I mean, distant.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

That's being generous. I mean, they have an understatement. Right. They currently have what in their coalition? 65, 66?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Well, the current coalition is almost 68 because of the because of Gibbon Par. Yeah. Right. Okay, in the falls, they are around 50. 49, 50, 51. True. They lost many seats. Many of their supporters do not want to vote for them. Now, this doesn't mean that all of them shifted to the opposition. Some of them did, some of them moved to Isencott or Bennett or parties that are clearly in the opposition. But there are still many of them who are either undecided or supported, supporters of these smaller parties in between the blocks. We in in the last several weeks or maybe months, we have these small parties that were created in order to force a unity government. At least this is what they say. So the idea behind these parties is we no longer want this game of blocks. You know, it's either Bibi or someone else, it's either the you know, just a right-wing coalition or just a center-left coalition. You know, Israel has many severe challenges, and we need a unity government. So we are going to stay in between the blocks. And if you give us your vote, we will force on the two parties or the two blocks to join, join forces and form a unity government. You know, the idea is simple. Executive.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Without the extremists is the is the basic argument, right? So without the extremist, without Orthodox. Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Right. Now, now, what what is the definition of extremists? What is the definition of not Zionist? Because some of them say we want a Zionist unity government. Well, are they ultra-orthodox Zionists or not Zionist? Are the two ultra-orthodox parties the same in that regard? Maybe United Toward Judaism is not Zionist, but Chas is Zionist. It's very difficult to say. Who are the extremists? Is it just Bengvir or also Smotrich? Is it just the extremists on the right? Or some people say no, the Democrats on the left are also extremists and we can't have them in the coalition. So you have many people with many wishes and dreams and desires about the forming the next coalition, but the numbers don't uh add up. If you look at the polls and you say, okay, let's assume we want to establish a coalition based on the current coalition, that's impossible. They only have 50 or 51 seats. Okay, let's move to the other side, to the the opposition block. Do you have enough people within the opposition block who agree that they can form a coalition and that they can that they are compatible in the sense that they agree which parties can be members of the coalition? Again, it's very difficult to see a 61 uh member majority in such a situation. So by and large, we are we are stuck. Uh we are stuck in in a in um in a situation in which no block seems to be able to reach the 61 seat threshold, right? And it's not yet clear what's going to happen after election day.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Okay. So I got a few pieces I want to pull apart here on this. But before that, what is the percentage of voters right now when you're taking these polls that are uh though you said those undecided? How many, how many are we talking about?

SPEAKER_01 16:32

So, so here you have to differentiate between undecided voters who didn't yet decide if they vote for Eisencott or Bennett, but they know that they will vote for an opposition party. It's clearly going to be an opposition party. They didn't yet decide which of the parties they want. That's one type of undecided. Then you have the people who didn't yet decide which block they'd go with, or the people who currently vote for the in-between the blocks parties. And and it's about 10% of the voters.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Uh so how many how many seats does that translate into?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Well, uh 10 10% of voters is uh uh we have 120 seats in the Knesset. So 10% of these. So that's 12 seats.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

So those those 12 seats, if they go with BB's coalition, that's a drink.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

If we go with one side or the other, it's game over. It's game over. Uh interesting. It's game over, but but they didn't yet decide what to do, and it's very likely that not all of them are going to make the exact same decision. So if they split half enough, we are still stuck. If they split two-thirds and a third, you know, someone is going to get closer to the possibility of forming a coalition.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So that leads me to my next question. Because I mean, you know, anecdotally, I'm not doing polling like you are, but it seems often to me in conversations that I have with people, family, friends, colleagues, whatever it is, uh, people are they're pretty entrenched, right? They know where, they know what block they're in. I mean, there's obviously, like you said, there's those undecided people. You know, I often talk to people in my circles who are debating, is it Bennett or is it Isencott? But, you know, they know that they're going for one or the other. There are obviously people, and I have them even within my family, who they want, they they like BB, they want to vote for BB, but they just, it's hard for them right now. So they just don't know what to do. And maybe those are those undecided kind of maybe they'll go in the end with BB if they don't find someone else, or maybe they'll go for one of these in-between parties. How much do is is is this group of these undecided people, that 10%, is this the focus of the campaign? In other words, when I see a campaign video that's put out by Eisencott or Bennett, or I see BB go to the Netanya Mall like he did the other day, or the Malcham mall in Jerusalem. Am I supposed to look at it? He's not trying to convince me, right? He's not trying to convince those people who are on the clear side of where they're voting, but he's trying, everyone's aiming for that, that 10%. Is that is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Well, it's it's accurate for some, but not for for all of them. For the opposition, that's clearly the goal: getting as many undecided to switch to opposition parties or vote for parties that don't cross the threshold, throwing their vote away. For Netanyahu and for uh Likud, the current challenge involves both convincing the undecided, but also convincing uh you know uh weaker supporters of the parties to go out and vote. What the what Likud is afraid for is a low um um low share of votes among its supporters because some people, you know, some people grew up as Likud supporters, they grew up as as Likud members, their parents voted for Likud, their their uncles and and aunts vote for Likud. They are members of Likud families, but they don't feel like voting Likud this time because they understand that there is an issue with Likud or an issue with the current coalition which they dislike. For some of them, it is easier to say I'll just stay home rather than switch to an opposition party. They will not go as far as voting against their camp, but they can say, you know, this year I'm lazy. I'm going to the beach. It's a it, you know, in Israel, election day is a holiday. Yeah, so people can go to the beach or go to the mall or do something else, and you know, they don't have to bother. And clearly for the coalition, one of the main goals in is not just chasing the undecided, it's also trying to produce some enthusiasm among their supporters because you don't see much enthusiasm about uh among uh coalition supporters right now. They they they feel much more subdued.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

And that is you mentioned this word, I think before, maybe uh a bit embarrassed. Is it is it that they are they they they recognize the flaws with this government? They you know the stain of October 7th, obviously, the responsibility, the problems, the wars that continue. Is that why you're not seeing that same enthusiasm? That maybe we've seen in the past rallying behind Netanyahu and his partners?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Well, you know, we can go back to the famous uh Reagan-Carter debate when Reagan asked the Americans, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Very few uh coalition supporters can say with straight face that Israel today is in a better situation than four years ago because of the ability of the coalition to be a well-functioning coalition. Now, of course, some of them will say this is not because of us, this is because of you know the Supreme Court or the Attorney General or our enemies, or you know, they'll they'll find all kinds of ways to explain away the the current situation. But to stand with straight face and say, yes, this coalition moved Israel from a worse situation to a better situation in the last four years, you know, that's a difficult task.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

But that's an argument that Netanyahu makes Shmuel. Netanyahu says, listen, yes, October 7th happened, disaster. He has his explanations for why, wasn't woken up, blah, blah, blah. But um, but look at where we are today. We've decimated Iran, we've we've eviscerated Hamas, we've degraded hisbolah, we toppled the Assad regime. Um, he'll make an argument that we're better off today, security-wise. He will, but it's it's a tough sell.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Uh looking looking at the polls and looking at the way Israelis are now understanding the situation in Iran or in Gaza or uh our economy or many other issues, uh, very few Israelis can truly argue that the situation is much better than before. Now, some of them would say, well, had it not been Netanyahu, we'd be even worse off. You you could say that. But to say that, you know, Gaza is resolved or Iran was defeated, I'm not sure Iran is defeated. I think the Iranians feel pretty much, you know, upbeat about the current situation. They didn't lose. Yeah, they didn't lose the war. In Gaza, we we don't yet know what's going to happen, but we we see Jared Kushnir uh going to speak with the heads of Hamas before he comes to speak with Netanyahu. Again, it's not as if the coalition cannot make any argument in its own favor. It's not as if they're out of you know, the bag of tricks or arguments or uh you know convincing uh slogans uh is empty. They do have they do have ways with which to try and convince some of the people that that what they see now is better than the alternative, and election is after all about alternatives. Then again, it's it's a tough sell.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah. The and it's definitely it's not the decisive victories that Nitanyo wanted to be able to bring to voters on the eve of an election. I I I want to talk specifically about some of the campaigns. Um Nitanya, who I'm gonna give you my impression for a moment, and then you tell me where I'm wrong, or or you know, please go explain. Never already. No, I'm oftentimes wrong. Nitanyo, it seems to me, runs a very pretty much consistent campaign, right? He's prime ministerial. You see him always with the suit. He he's not doing, he's not jumping around all the time. He's going out now. We see him going to the malls, he's doing a lot of these podcasts now, he's doing some deep interviews, long form. He's he's trying to get across a message. He's trying to stay consistent with that. Gotti Eisencott, I also see consistency, uh, to some extent, disciplined, on message, not a lot of talking, not a lot of interviewing, kind of Ariel Sharon-esque. If we borrow from back in the day, they also similar kind of bodybuild and general type of thing. And then you got Naftali Bennett, who every day seems like he's jumping from one issue to the next. One day he's pushing the Khariti draft. The next day he's pushing uh Qatar needs to be declared as an enemy state. Then I see him put out a video from the border with Jordan that uh there's holes in the border fence. Then I see him last a couple days ago, he goes to sleep down south on the border with Gaza and not in kibbutznachal oz. I mean, every day there's something else. Very classic Bennett type of campaigning. That's always been the way he does things. How do you view the the kind of this description of the different campaigns?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Well, I generally agree with you, and and uh you you have different personalities, but also different situations here. For Netanyahu, you know, for Netanyahu campaigning um is something quite bizarre in the sense that we we all know Netanyahu. There's no he doesn't really need to reintroduce himself to the Israeli public. This is this is a that's a commodity we're familiar with since 1996. Um we all have an opinion about Netanyahu. We all know him, we all understand both his strengths and and weaknesses. If you like the way he runs things, you're going to vote for him. If not, you're not going to vote for him. It's very difficult for Netanyahu to you know reinvent himself. There's no reinventing uh himself for Netanyahu. The only thing he can do is try to rally the base and such things, but uh not much more than that. Eisencott is the is the new guy in town. Um and and he him and his advisors decided that uh what you call the the charon tactic, that's the best way for him to operate. He doesn't talk much, which means that he doesn't say any foolish things that will later haunt him. Um, you know, very what we call Mamlachti, you know, solid. Um statesman in that sense. Statesman and and very, you know, very mild in the sense that he doesn't speak against anyone.

unknown 28:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

He does speak against the coalition, but in in mild terms, he's not trying to be the most provocative or you know, headline grabbing type politician.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

So in other words, he wants people to look at him and say, new guy on the block, clean, nice. He's got this obviously tragic, compelling story of losing his son in the war. Let's vote for him. It's the it's the it's the easy decision to make. Is that the idea?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

And and and and in addition, I would say he understands that many Israelis just want some calm. After four years of constant disturbance, you know, some of it because of the war, but a lot of it because of because of the political atmosphere, the whole, you know, judicial reform upheaval, and many of the many of the policies of the current coalition and some of the rhetoric from the opposition are meant to create, you know, to steer the waters. And many Israelis are just tired. They just want someone to come to the office in the morning, you know, do his job without trying to constantly keep us busy busy with these, you know, political shenanigans.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

We don't have to hear about them every day, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Exactly, exactly. It's you know, again, it's it's it's it's the anti-current coalition. You could say it's it's a it's uh you you don't want the Trump atmosphere in Israel. We are tired of of political upheaval, and and Isencott offers something that is much calmer.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

So like kind of like, but you what you're saying, I'm here, I'm seeing Biden to some extent, right? Biden defeating Trump uh back in what was it, 2020 in those elections, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yeah, let's let's just get to work and and do some good things for for Israel, and and we don't have to tweet all day and enrage people and incite against people. Let's just be calm, honest, moderate. That's that's the offer. Now you mentioned Bennett.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

So what happened? Because I mean, just let's but let's just add to that. Bennett was up here, he was so high, and now he's down here. He's lost more than half his his polling seats.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

And that's why he he needs to recreate, to reinvent himself. Uh, you know, three, four months ago, Bennett was considered himself, and was was considered by many Israelis to be the quote-unquote alternative to Bibi. People thought this election is going to be about, you know, Netanyahu versus Bennett. He ended up playing a you know secondary role to the rise of Gadi Eisencott. In Israel, you don't have to have the largest party in order to be the prime minister. Bennett was already prime minister as a head of the party with very few members. So he might entertain such thoughts uh again, but but but he does need to make sure that his numbers aren't, you know, don't keep declining.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

But well, what what happened to him? Because he was at 25, and now polls show him at 12. How did he how did he drop so dramatically over the span of the last two months?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Because mostly because um uh members of the opposition, supporters of the opposition, people who don't want the current coalition and don't want Netanyahu as prime minister, looked at the different options that they were offered and ultimately decided that Eisencott is more to their liking. Bennett was always an implant, you know, staunchly right wing. He came, he came from the fields of the current coalition and moved all the way to the opposition in sentiment, but not in all in all views. And with Bennett, there's always this suspicion, you know, he moved from one side to the other, he might switch back, etc. So people are more suspicious about him. And, you know, they they went for him when he was the alternative. But when they realized that there might be someone else who could be the alternative to Netanyahu, they gradually moved from Bennett to Isencott. And Bennett now needs to look to these undecided voters in the middle and you know, try and chip in and get some people from here and from there in order for him to remain strong and relevant and to be able to play a role in the in the next government.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

Can he do you think it's reversible, or is this Bennett is gonna stay where he is and Isencott is gonna continue to be the front runner?

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Look, everything is possible in in Israeli elections, but but right now it doesn't seem likely that Bennett is going to rise back all the way, and and Eisencott is going to go down all the way back. Um the difference between the two parties is seven, eight, nine seats. That's a that's a fairly big difference. The large party of the opposition is the Eisencott party, and Bennett is the head of the mid-size opposition party.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

You mentioned before that Bennett made the coalition back in 2021, what was called the change coalition or change government with just originally seven, lost one member, became six, and with just six seats. I think Ye Shati, Lapide's party at the time, had what, 19 or 20 or whatever it was. And he he was installed as the prime minister. There's a lot of talk that actually Avigdor Lieberman, the guy we didn't mention his name yet, who's a member of the opposition, he's the head of the Israel Baitenu party, been polling pretty solid, right? At about nine seats. Pretty solid throughout the last few months. Seems like he's got a base. He's right wing also, but very secular, anti- ultra-orthodox. Um, lots of, you know, interesting messaging, but he also managed to get some right-wingers that he might come up and say, listen, Gotti, with all due respect, I know you got 20 seats. I've been finance minister, foreign minister, defense minister, strategic affairs minister, whatever other ministry he's run. I've been here for, I don't know, 20 plus years. My turn. Is that, do you see that maybe happening?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

It might happen. And and this will be, you know, it's a it's a poker game. After the election, he could say this, and Aizen could could tell him, well, I'm I'm not playing this game. And and what will Lieberman do then? Join join with the coalition of Likud and the ultra-orthodox parties? You know, again, possible that this will go against every everything he says now. Um I think that the ambition of opposition parties to um finally be able to end the Netanyahu era is very strong. I think they all want that. Does this mean that there's no ego there, that they will not try to play games and and um you know be on top rather than playing a secondary role? I I'm not sure, but let's hope that they're all grown-ups and that ultimately they will not, you know, the the the situation can um can deteriorate in the sense that if if everybody wants to be prime minister and no one has the coalition to be prime minister, we'll just go to another round of election. Which would be for Netanyahu. We've been there. This might be what Netanyahu is building on. I don't think Netanyahu is very likely to move up from 50 or 51 to 61 in the in the next two months. You know, again, everything can happen, but right now, this the and and for the last half a year, the situation is pretty much stable. We didn't the blocks didn't move much. The parties go up and down, but the blocks are fairly stable. So I don't think it's very likely for Netanyahu to get to a 61 majority by election day. Uh, but for him, preventing the other side from getting to from having enough parties to form their own coalition, that's a victory in and of itself. Right. And then the question becomes of whether they can form a minority, minority government just to to uh make sure Netanyahu is evacuated from the prime minister's office until the next election, etc. These are all tactical questions that will have to be answered after election day.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

But this is the I mean, this is the I think that's what I try to tell people is that you have to redefine victory. And if victory is not necessarily like you just said, it's not the 61 for Netanyahu, it's denying or preventing the other side from getting coalition. And this ties into the last issue that I wanted to bring up because we didn't really mention the Arabs yet. You mentioned them and what they would get in terms of voter turnout, but this is kind of the real, I would say, heavy issue here. And you see that Netanyahu's campaign is also very much focused on that. Gaudi can only make a government with the Arabs. And there was that very controversial video that was made. Uh, I mean, all these AI videos that they're making of Gaudi Eisencott running into the arms of Mansur Abbas, the leader of Rahm, uh, who now might be actually installing uh Yoav Sigolovich, a Jewish member of Knesset from the Yeshet, a former high-ranking police uh uh official and officer into his party. So it might not even be just an Arab party, it might be an Arab Jewish party, which might change the dynamics. I don't know. But here's the thing. Will let's say Isencott, Bennett, Lieberman, yeah, Irgolan, election ends, October 27th, midnight, game. You know, it's over. We have the exit polls, pretty clear where we're going. They're at 58. They don't have 61. They call up Mansur Abbas, they make the government with him, or they don't.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

You're asking me. Ask them. I'm asking you. Right now, they're saying no. Right. The official line is no, we aren't going to do it. Uh they must say that they aren't going to do it because this will be the main uh campaign issue of Likud if they say yes. So they must say no, we are not going to form a coalition based on Arab support. But again, that at some point the the numbers must add up. You if if you want a coalition, you need enough parties. So either they go to Mansur Abbas and ask him to join in, or at least support the coalition from the outside, or they have to convince one of the coalition parties to join in, and that's difficult because you have Bengvir, that's you know, the extreme right wing, you have Smotrich, and some of them will say, well, Smothrich is no less a zilot than than uh Ben Gvir. Ben Gvir. Right. You you have the two ultra-orthodox parties. Are you willing to join forces with the ultra-orthodox party with all the the you know the the draft law, etc., the price that this that this will cost. So again, it's it's a very difficult situation. Some of the parties in the middle, that's exactly what they say. They say the numbers don't add up. We are going to tell Likud and Isencott, there's no other way for you but to join forces. It's not impossible. But then the question becomes who's going to be prime minister? Remember, one of the biggest.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

By the way, you know, I mean it kills me because at the end of the day, politically speaking, ideologically speaking, right? I mean, we just we started by talking about Gaza Schmuel, right? Gaudi Isenkop becomes prime minister tomorrow. He's gonna withdraw the IDF suddenly from all of Gaza without Hamas disarming. No. Policy will pretty much remain the same. So what's dividing these two people is really personality issues. Now, of course, Netanyahu is responsible and should be held accountable for October 7th. I'm not saying no, but the country does need to be able to have a coalition that's stable, that's responsible, that's moderate, and that represents the majority of the people of this country.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah, but there are two issues on which the two blocs can hardly agree. One is the ultra-orthodox challenge. What do you do with the orthodox challenge? That's a huge issue. And the second one is judicial reform. For right wing voters, including Likud voters, changing the balance of power between the Knesset and the Supreme Court is a very high priority. And for Likud to say, okay, we are going to ditch the judicial reform. We are going to ditch our loyal partners in the ultra-orthodox parties and form a unity government with Isencott, that's a high bar for them. I'm not saying that's impossible. What's good for the people is not a good idea. Shamir and Paris. Shamir and Paris formed formed such a coalition back in 1984, and it was one of Israel's best governments ever. It lasted like what, five, six years? No, four years, and then for two more years. For two more years, right? So six years or two years. Two more years as a as a second government, yeah. So it lasted for six years. It was the government that stopped the inflation, uh, the very high rate of inflation in Israel that became unbearable. They were able to stop it, they were able to stop the bloodshed in in Lebanon. It was a crucial government at a crucial point in time, and it was highly productive. Can Netanyahu and Isencott become the Shamir and Paris of 2026. Again, we know the personalities.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Israel of 2026 is not Israel of the 19th century. It's a different country.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

This uh it's a different country, and these are different people.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Wow. Shmuel, this was great. I really want to thank you so much. Uh, really enlightening, really important, really interesting. We're gonna have to do this again. So I'm putting down already on the calendar. Uh September 7th. Exactly. We'll wait for the parties to be submitted. We'll see who's with who, who's now sitting, who's dropped out, and then we do this again as kind of the the as we get closer to the election. Thank you very much. Well, it was really great to have you. With pleasure. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining me on today's episode. As always, you can find us where podcasts can be found on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and the website of Times of Israel. Please join us next week for another episode of the Jewish People's Podcast. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Stay safe, and Shabbat shalom.