Likud Long Knives Come Out for Bibi as Poll Numbers Drop
By JOSH MARSHALL Published MARCH 13, 2015, 3:06 PM EDT
We have four more polls released today, only a handful of days out from the Israeli election. They show a small but clear and hardening lead for the Zionist Camp/Labor Party over Netanyahu's Likud. Three polls show ZC/Labor with a four-seat lead over Likud. Another shows a two-point advantage for ZC/Labor. (Here's the best aggregation of all the polls here.)
(Just after I published this post, two new polls were released, each also showing a four-seat ZC/Labor lead.)
Two points stand out in the polls. Likud is dropping and now ZC/Labor seems to be rising — at least a bit. Also notable is that the center-right bloc itself seems to be under pressure.
As we discussed earlier, one of the assumptions or key focuses of this election was how the right-wing vote would divide up between Likud, Jewish Home and Yisrael Beytenu. The last of those three is Avigdor Lieberman's party. Their numbers have dropped dramatically, for a number of reasons, but largely because of a major corruption scandal. So they have been largely neutralized and are hovering right above the electoral threshold of four seats. The question has been whether Netanyahu could pull seats from the Jewish Home party to his right and bump up his numbers or whether the flow would go in the other direction.
But the latest polls show suggest that neither is happening. Likud is shedding seats. But they're not going to Jewish Home. Jewish Home is either holding its own or itself losing ground. In other words, it is not just Netanyahu and Likud that is slipping. The two right-wing parties are shedding seats toward the center. Probably mainly to Kulanu (headed by a former Likud politician) and some to religious parties.
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/continuing-rough-polls-for-netanyahu
= new reply since forum marked as read
...that they're NEXT!!!! 
...in fact, I have a long knife in my drawer. It's a Ginsu. Oh, now I can't talk about how my Toyota has an exhaust leak. 
15 political parties in Israel. Wow, sounds like a Republican paradise!
