Post-storm poll: Government won’t function better in next disaster

The poll found that 52 percent do not think the government will function better, 28% believe it will, and 20% had no opinion.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Jerusalem snow plow cleanup 370 (photo credit: Daniel K. Eisenbud)
Jerusalem snow plow cleanup 370
(photo credit: Daniel K. Eisenbud)
More than half of Israelis do not believe governmental authorities will function any better the next time it faces a serious challenge like last weekend’s massive snowstorm, a Panels poll in The Jerusalem Post’s Hebrew sister paper Sof Hashavua found Thursday.
The poll found that 52 percent do not think the government will function better, 28% believe it will, and 20% had no opinion. The poll found that two-thirds of Israelis believe the government, municipalities, and the Israel Electric Company were not prepared for the storm.
Nevertheless, more Israelis oppose than support forming a parliamentary commission of inquiry to probe the governmental authorities’ handling of the storm, 45% to 42%.
The poll found that were elections held today, Likud Beytenu would win 30 seats, Labor 19, Bayit Yehudi 15, Yesh Atid and Meretz 12, Shas 10, United Torah Judaism 7, Hatnua 5, Hadash 4, and Balad and United Arab List 3.
When asked whether Likud and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party should maintain their partnership, 46% said no and 18% said yes. Among Likud Beytenu voters, the results were much different: 54% said they wanted to keep the bond and 36% said to split the parties.
Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirschenbaum, who is Yisrael Beytenu’s secretary- general, confirmed an Israel Radio report that she said in an internal meeting of the party’s administration that Liberman wanted the two parties to run separately in the next election.
Barring a change of heart by Liberman, his party’s secretariat is expected to meet in January or February to decide to maintain the current bond in the parliament but run separately in the next election.
The same decision will be made at the next Likud convention at the beginning of February, despite the opposition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The prime minister succeeded in blocking a vote on the matter in Wednesday’s convention, but a Likud internal court ruled that the issue will come to a vote at the next convention.
“Likudniks and Yisrael Beytenu activists understand that it was an odd wedding,” said the convention’s chairman, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon. “The opinion of Likudniks is clear: We need to cooperate in the Knesset, but next time we are on our own.”
Meanwhile, Likud central committee members approved on Thursday 18 resolutions concerning internal matters in a secret ballot vote at the Tel Aviv fairgrounds.


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