Polls, especially the media’s weekly election polls, are central to our lives. They can influence public opinion and create reality – often by telling voters to “go with the flow.” The trajectory of Rafi Eitan’s Gil Pensioners Party in 2006 is a good example. During the Knesset election campaign, Gil seemed unable to clear the necessary threshold, but finally won two seats in the final poll released just before the election. This poll galvanized many voters who had feared that their vote for Gil would be wasted to cast their vote for him, and the party won a shocking seven seats.
Not only do opinion polls influence the general public, Israeli politicians also rely heavily on them before making fateful decisions for the future of the Jewish state.
This is what Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin did before deciding to go down the Oslo Accords path, after opinion polls clearly showed that a majority of Israelis supported the idea of “Gaza and Jericho first.”
Prime Minister Ehud Barak also made extensive use of opinion polls during his term in office when negotiating with the Palestinians and Syria. One of the reasons he decided not to pursue negotiations with Syria was the fact that opinion polls showed that a majority of Israelis were opposed to withdrawing from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Damascus.
What do the polls say about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s future?
While various polls have historically shown similar results, recently there have been large discrepancies between the major polling agencies. This situation has created two parallel realities regarding Israeli public opinion. A poll conducted by the Midgham Institute on June 10 and published on Channel 12 estimated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition government has a total of 51 seats in parliament, while another poll published the same day by Direct Polls on Channel 14 estimated the government’s number of seats at 59.
The differences in the polls at this point are mostly reflected in the results for Israel’s two main mainstream parties, Likud and National Unity, while the distribution of support for the other parties remains roughly the same. Thus, on Channel 12, National Unity leads with 22 seats to Likud’s 19, while on Channel 14, Likud leads with 26 seats to National Unity’s 17.
Before the 2022 elections, the polls were nearly identical, with only the Channel 14 poll predicting a majority for Netanyahu’s camp. But there appears to have been a shift in the way the two polls sample Israeli society after 2023. The difference is especially visible in the poll results after the Hamas attacks.
Meanwhile, a Channel 14 poll attests to the reality that the October 7 election failure did not have a significant impact on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party’s Knesset seat tally, while a Channel 12 poll showed Likud plummeting from 28 seats to 18.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party, the polls show the exact opposite: while Channel 12 shows Gantz’s party increasing its seats from 27 to 37, the Channel 14 poll shows that the October 7 defeat had little impact on the NUN in terms of seats.
Of course, the big question is which polls accurately reflect reality. The answer will only be known when we get to the polls. Until then, it seems each side of Israel’s polarized politics will continue to see their own version of the reality reflected in the polls they follow, whether they are Channel 12, which is considered the ideological opposition, or Channel 14, which is considered the coalition.
Netanyahu will continue to enjoy the Channel 14 poll showing his political position to be stable, while Gantz will look at his reality through the Channel 12 poll, which ultimately lies somewhere in between.
The author is a lecturer and researcher at the University of South Wales, UK. His latest book is Israel: National Security and Security (Springer, 2023). His new book on the Labour Party is forthcoming from Wrestling Press.
