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Poll: ‘Deal of the Century’ will not help Netanyahu in next election

As with the last two elections, it’s unlikely that either Netanyahu or Gantz will be able to form a ruling government without Liberman’s Israel Beiteinu party.

By World Israel News Staff

Despite the favorable response to President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century” and the successful release of Israeli backpacker Naama Issachar from a Russian prison, it doesn’t look like either will help boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of breaking the political deadlock gripping the country.

A new poll, conducted by the Maagar Mochot Institute on Friday, found that the right-wing and religious bloc would receive 56 Knesset seats compared to 57 seats for the left-wing and Arab bloc.

According to the poll, if elections were held today, Netanyahu’s chief rival Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party would win one more Knesset seat (34) than it did in the last election, and Netanyahu’s Likud party would drop one seat (31). A coalition of 61 seats is the minimum requirement to form a government.

As for the smaller parties, the poll predicts that Israel Beiteinu would drop from eight to seven, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox Shas party would win the same nine seats it won previously, United Torah Judaism would match its current seven seats, and the newly formed Yamina party would win nine seats. The Otzma Yehudit party would fail to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold, the poll indicates.

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The left-wing parties of Labor-Gesher-Meretz would win nine seats collectively, and the Arab Joint List, which so far refuses to join any coalition, would win 14 seats

As with the last two elections, it’s unlikely that either Netanyahu or Gantz will be able to form a ruling government without Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman’s party.