Poll finds Israelis unsatisfied with Netanyahu’s handling of terrorism

An overwhelming majority of Israelis are dissatisfied with the performance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the face of the current spate of terrorist attacks, a Panels Politics poll taken for the Knesset Channel found Thursday. The poll found that 71 percent of respondents were dissatisfied and only 24% were satisfied. Two-thirds of respondents said they felt threatened by the attacks. When asked who they would like to see put in charge of dealing with terrorism, 26% said Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, 21% Bayit Yehudi head Naftali Bennett, 15% Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon (Likud), and only 8% said Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who is actually in charge of ending the attacks in Jerusalem. Following the poll results, Liberman issued a series of attacks against the prime minister. His office said “the public apparently understands that in the face of terrorism, the empty slogans of the prime minister and defense minister are not enough and that they need a strong man who knows what to do and will do it.” Writing on his official Facebook page, Liberman said the public should ask the prime minister where their security and their money are. He said the prime minister should ask forgiveness from the people of Israel, especially his voters, for breaking his campaign promises and resign. Netanyahu's Likud said in response that it was Liberman who broke his campaign promises by saying he would join a right-wing government and then joining the Left in the opposition. The party said in a statement that Liberman should be supporting the government's security efforts. Regarding the poll, Likud officials said the results were surprising because “Liberman's party was in charge of the Public Security Ministry for years and did nothing.” When asked if opposition leader Isaac Herzog would handle the wave of terrorism better than Netanyahu, only 12% of respondents to the poll said yes. A majority of respondents said they blamed the Palestinian Authority for the violence, not the government. Regarding international issues, 44% said Netanyahu acted correctly against the administration of US President Barack Obama on the Iran deal and 39% said he acted incorrectly. The rest did not have an opinion or did not respond. When asked whether they prefer the next US president be Republican or Democrat, 33% said Republican, 23% said Democrat, and the rest said it did not matter to them, they did not have an opinion, or declined to respond. The poll of 500 people representing a statistical sample of the population has a 4.3% margin of error.

Poll finds Israelis unsatisfied with Netanyahu’s handling of terrorism

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