Israeli far right gains ground as Gaza rockets fuel tension

• Misfired missile kills two young Palestinian sisters
• Beiteinu party up in polls as calls grow for tough line

Support for Israel's ultra-nationalist rightwing parties is growing as the Jewish state and Hamas, the Islamists who rule Gaza, lurch closer to a major confrontation.

Polling published in several Israeli dailies yesterday showed rising support for Israel Beiteinu, which takes a hard line on Gaza and advocates transferring predominantly Arab towns in Israel to a future Palestinian state. The surge in support for the far right comes amid growing tensions in Gaza since the official end to a six-month ceasefire a week ago.

Yesterday, a rocket fired from Gaza at Israel accidentally struck a Gazan house, killing two Palestinian sisters, aged five and 13, and wounding a third, medics said.

Hamas had hoped the ceasefire would lead to the lifting of the blockade which Israel imposed 18 months ago to weaken the Islamists who took control of Gaza after ousting their more secular Fatah rivals from the territory following elections and a breakdown in power-sharing.

But while both Hamas and Israel have expressed an interest in renewing the ceasefire, they have retreated to military action and bellicose talk.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/27/israel-nationalism-beiteinu-likud-gaza

Ha'aretz, who actually conducted one of the polls, has this headline:

"Support for Likud falling among right-wing voters, survey finds"

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050009.html

The Ha'aretz poll shows Likud dropping from 36 to 30 seats with three right-wing parties gaining those six seats. Kadima holds relatively steady in that poll with 26 seats.

(Yedioth Ahronoth and Ma'ariv polls have similar results - although the Ma'ariv one has Kadima leading Likud 30-29)

In any case, it seems like the Feiglin branch of Likud is abandoning ship and moving to the more right-wing parties.

I would say that this does not suggest that the "Israeli far right is gaining ground" but rather that the Israeli far right is leaving Likud.

Edit to add: Here's the link to the Ma'ariv poll. It's in Hebrew, but it has a graphic that shows the results:

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/831/155.html?hp=0&loc=302&tmp=4696

What the article said is correct. Support for the ultra-nationalist far-right parties is growing, and the fact that the poll results show they're looking to gain six seats shows that they are gaining ground...

The most recent Ha'aretz poll had the following results:

Kadima: 26, Labor: 11, Likud: 30, Yisrael Beteinu: 11

The article in Ha'aretz compared the poll that it did on December 10th to the more recent poll from December 25th.

That earlier poll had the following results:

Kadima: 27, Labor: 12, Likud: 36, Yisrael Beteinu: 9

On November 20 Ha'aretz published a poll with the following results:

Kadima: 28, Labor: 10, Likud: 34, Yisrael Beteinu: 10

Currently Yisrael Beteinu has 11 seats in the Knesset.

The poll results from Yisrael Beteinu seem pretty steady over the past month - and they have consistently been polling right around their current number of seats.

Looking at the Ha'aretz polls on December 10th and December 25th, the left-wing party, Meretz, went from 6 seats in the earlier poll to 8 seats in the more recent poll. That would be the exact same increase in seats as Yisrael Beiteinu. And it would represent a 3 seat increase from their current number of seats, 5.

"Israeli Left-Wing Party Poised to Gain Three Seats" could have just as easily been chosen as a headline, or "Right-Wing Likud Party Losing Ground in Recent Polling"

The Guardian chose to spin these poll results in a way that eliminates any mention of the gains of the left-wing Meretz and inflates the popularity of Yisrael Beiteinu (which is recovering slightly from a drop in its poll numbers to about the level it had at the last election).

The other right wing parties are polling at or below the number of seats they currently hold.

i was called up last week, it was obviously paid for by the "right wing"....the questions were directed and vague enough so that they could manipulate them...plus after about 15 minutes of question after question i got bored and opened up the DU to distract myself (not wanting to be rude and hang up)..and just started answering the "first or second answer"

and this was not the first time thats happened.....which means i'm sure i'm in those last polls, just not sure what side of the polls they put me.