New poll: Likud wins big, Olmert's rating at 3%

[Womble]

Poll: Likud back in lead (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3358961,00.html)

If elections were held today, the governing Kadima party would receive a mere nine mandates, according to a telephone poll carried out by the Smith Institute for Ynet.

While Kadima is collapsing in public opinion, favor is returning for the Likud party. According to the poll, Likud would triumph in hypothetical elections with a full 32 mandates.

Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu was perceived as the person best suited to serve as prime minister, earning 34 percent support and beating out his competitors by a large margin.

After Netanyahu, those surveyed favored Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Labor Knesset Member Ami Ayalon, who each earned the support of 16 percent, then Ehud Barak with 8 percent. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert trailed with only 3 percent of the vote.

The survey, which was carried out Monday evening, questioned 500 adults over the age of 18 and had a 4.5 percent error margin.

Those polled pledged their votes for the political parties as follows:

Likud: 32 mandates

Israel Our Home: 10

Kadima: 9

Labor: 9

Shas: 8

National Union-NRP: 6

United Torah Judaism: 5

Meretz: 4

Pensioners: 3

Undecided: 24

Total: 120

The Likud’s reemergence after its failure in the last elections – when it received only 12 mandates – was particularly notable, as was Kadima's significant drop from 29 to only nine mandates.

Olmert's votes 3%, margin of error 4.5%... There actually is a chance that Olmert's rating is literally below zero!:D

[Illuminatus]

Wow...the incumbent PM gets a whopping 3 percent, and people say Dubya is unpopular. Amazing. Netanyahu who set up Israel's current economic success story looks to be in excellent electoral shape.

" It's getting close to Bibi time! "

[Mediocrates]

Remember that Olmert took over from Sharon. I don't think anyone ever expected him to be more than a caretaker. History dumped some events on him he didn't expect, like Lebanon like continued anarchy among the Palestinians but for the most part he was an accidental leader.

Anyway what's Bibi bring to the table in terms of actionable plans and concrete do-able steps to go forward. Or will Israeli politics continue to flounder in a morass of squabbling factions and do-nothing backbiting? Olmert or Bibi or the man in the moon can demand the Palestinians do such and such but everyone knows that's pointless. Might as well be King Canute commanding the tides to cease. So barring any progress from the Palestinians, what's there left to do? Continue to send tanks onesis twosies into Gaza every time someone shoots off a rocket or detonates their underware?

Maybe the best foreign policy is to have no foreign policy at all. Maybe in order to create and foster or more cohesive Israeli society they should instead focus on domestic issues; helping the poor, fixing the schools, reorganizing national service, changing the tax system, getting foreign investment on track, fixing the electoral system and such. I don't think that obsessing on a broken process meant to push a failed cause is worthwhile.
Better perhaps they work to make Israel itself a better place and then from that position of strength begin implementing policies vis a vis the Palestinians that the Israelis won't fight amongst themselves about.

Palestinian aims are clear: they want all of E. Jerusalem, all of the West Bank and some kind of unulimited repatriation. They also want Israel to give up all of Golan and Shebaa and most of their sea lane and airspace rights. I doubt any of that is negotiable. The Israelis will never agree to all of that and the Palestinians will never compromise because their own best shot at success is failure itself.

So just ignore it and work to get Israel going, fix the problems they know they have an ability to fix. Given this, what does Bibi specifically have the ability to implement successfully? If nothing or it all crashes down with the same old stupid Israeli noise and whining about coalition parties then what's the point?

[KettleWhistle]

Anyway what's Bibi bring to the table in terms of actionable plans and concrete do-able steps to go forward. Or will Israeli politics continue to flounder in a morass of squabbling factions and do-nothing backbiting?

For quite some time the Israeli public has been shifting its support from one party to the next not because of what they were promised but because of disaffection with the leadership. And that is due to the general malfunction of the political system. What Israel really needs is probably not Bibi. It is a leadership that is willing and able to institute broad governmental reforms. The problem here is the system that's not working. It's not only incapable of doing anything regarding the Jewish-Arab conflict, but also about social and economic issues. So unless the government system is fixed, what's going on will just continue to go on, no matter who's at the helm.