Kan 11 Poll expert: Israel heading to fourth elections

A Kan 11 polling exper told "The Marker" that Israel is headed to a fourth round of elections, and laments tribal voting patterns.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Israel elections:time to vote. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Israel elections:time to vote.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
After going through two rounds of elections, the Israeli public is tired, is of the opinion that it has already told the various political actors what it wants, and now it is their job to hammer out a working government, Kan 11 poll expert Dudi Hassid told The Marker on Friday.
“I have not seen one serious poll in which all parties stick to their promises and a government is created," he said.
He added that all parties already showed they are willing to stick to their guns, as Blue and White leader Benny Gantz has refused to form a coalition with either Likud leader and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Joint List leader Ayman Odeh. Yemina or ultra-Orthodox parties have refused to break away from the right-wing bloc and support Gantz, and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman has refused to back either Netanyahu or Gantz.
The meaning of these decisions, if kept, is that voting results will be the same and the current situation will continue – leading the nation to a fourth round of elections, he said.
 
Hassid pointed out that nothing that has happened in the past two months, from the unveiling of US President Donald Trump’s "Deal of the Century" to the return of Naama Issacharf rom Russia, led to any major change in the public’s voting. “It is all very limited [in scope],” he said, “and balances out in a few days.”
Joking about the repeated expression used by Netanyahu in his campaign, that should “300,000 Likud members who sat out the last round come vote now he can win the elections” – he asked how can we know they are Likud supporters if they sat at home during the last elections?
“The amazing thing,” he said, “is that almost all of us [Israeli] citizens define ourselves in a tribal way.” Meaning that 80% of Israelis are willing to claim they are Mizrahi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Arabs or Jews from the former USSR.
Even among young people who were born in this country, the self-definition remains the same, he said. Parties that did not market themselves to a tribe were unable to enter the Knesset in the previous elections. He named Zehut and New Right as such parties.
“These elections, like the previous ones, are about whom you don’t like,” he said.
“We are about to have a third election because of 1,500 votes,” he said, “that is very frustrating.”