With general elections anticipated yet again in March of next year, a new electoral poll published on Friday, September 11, by the pro-Netanyahu freely-distributed newspaper Israel Hayom shows a growth in support for the Joint List with 17 Knesset seats if the elections were held now, up from 15 seats in the current Knesset. This would keep the Joint List led by MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash) as the third largest parliamentary faction after far-right Netanyahu’s leading Likud, which would win 31 seats (down from its 36 MKs now) and MK Naftali Bennet’s even more extreme right Yamina (Rightward), with 20 Knesset seats, up from only 5 seats in the current Knesset.
The poll predicts 13 Knesset seats for MK Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid-Telem party while Alternate Prime Minister and current Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue & White party would win only 10 seats, followed by Shas with nine seats, Yisrael Beytenu with eight, the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party with seven and Meretz with five seats. Labor, Derech Eretz and HaBayit HaYehudi would not pass the electoral threshold (3.25% of validated votes) according to the Israel Hayom poll.