The pro-Netanyahu bloc of parties would get 45 seats after the election, according to the poll, while the anti-Netanyahu bloc have 60 together. Naftali Bennett’s Yamina and the United Arab List, who wouldn’t say whether they intend to back Netanyahu, hold the remaining 15 Knesset seats, according to the poll.

[There is] pressure Gantz finds himself under ahead of the March 23 election. On Tuesday, a public letter signed by 130 former IDF officers and defense officials called on him to drop out of the race, warning that if he stays until the end and fails to cross the threshold, he will essentially be crowning Netanyahu.

The upcoming elections will be determined at the bottom, not the top. There is little doubt the Likud will remain the biggest Knesset party. Next in the polls is the centrist Yesh Atid… Netanyahu’s ability to amass the equivalent votes of a 61-seat Knesset majority, which he has failed to achieve in three back-to-back elections, depends on one thing only: whether any of the small parties in the “anyone-but-Netanyahu” bloc fail to pass the threshold.

Netanyahu: “Who will stand up to Iran. Lapid, or I? I, who am leading the global opposition to Iran getting nuclear weapons, or Lapid, who supported the deal along with his friends? These two issues aren’t the only ones. Who will jump-start our economy?”

Lapid: “We need to work closely with the Biden administration in order to get a better deal. We need to be less provocative and more co-operative. The fact that the Netanyahu government is totally identified with the Republican party, with President Trump, is not helpful, because we are now not considered as a bipartisan issue in the US — and we must be”.

With less than two months before the elections… Netanyahu’s election campaign slogans will undoubtedly profess that only he can be trusted to confront the Iranians. Yet, none of his political opponents I spoke to were willing to say what is clear— Netanyahu’s policy relating to JCOPA has been a disaster. It has failed, and the collateral damage from that failure is a lessening of support for Israel among young American Democrats.

Mr Netanyahu sounds different. He has been visiting Arab towns, where he takes credit for a highly successful roll-out of covid-19 vaccines. His party, Likud, has placed an Arab Muslim on its list of candidates. The prime minister says he enjoys it when Arabs call him “Abu Yair” (father of Yair), reflecting their practice of referring to someone as the parent of their eldest son. “It brings tears to my eyes,” he says.

For some Palestinians, participation in Israel’s government is a betrayal of the Palestinian cause — a criticism [Raam party leader] Mr. Abbas understands. “I have this deep personal conflict inside of me,” he acknowledged. “We have been engaged in a conflict for 100 years, a bloody and difficult conflict.” But it was time to move on, he added. “You need to be able to look to the future, and to build a better future for everyone, both Arabs and Jews.”

But the prime minister’s anti-Arab, race-baiting campaigns of the past make it unlikely that he could hold together a government that requires support from an Arab leader, especially an Islamist. “A Likud-led government supported by Ra’am, it wouldn’t hold even for a week,” said health minister Yuli Edelstein, an ally of Netanyahu’s and a Likud heavyweight. “I just don’t think that’s possible.”

Naftali Bennett wants to be prime minister with ten or maybe a dozen seats. He wants to be prime minister even if his party, Yamina, will be the fourth largest, after the Likud, after Yesh Atid, after the New Hope party. Call it Israeli Chutzpah. Call it what you will. This is what Bennett wants.

Three times, the elections could be summarized, albeit crudely, as battles to oust Netanyahu and the right. This time, they constitute more of a battle to oust Netanyahu by the right, with Bennett and Sa’ar at the fore, and Bennett betting that his “no boycotts” approach, combined with his years of ministerial experience, his earlier successful high-tech career, and his glowing military commander’s record, will give him the edge.

“It’s time to fire the CEO” of the country, Bennett declared in a jab aimed at Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bashing him over his failure to apply Israel’s sovereignty to West Bank areas in summer 2020. He did not reject sitting in a government with Netanyahu’s Likud, however, saying that he respected the will of Netanyahu’s supporters. Speaking about his possible kingmaker status, with electoral maths as projected by polls hinting that Bennett may hold the keys to the March 23 vote, Bennett said: “My plan is to make 10 million Israelis become kings.”