Netanyahu challenged from the right, not from the left
Israel’s political left is doing so badly that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most serious challenger currently is right-wing politician Naftali Bennett.
Polls published in recent days dealt a harsh blow to Israel’s political left. The next elections might feature a right-wing vs. right-wing duel instead of a center-left challenge to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to these polls, Yamina party chief Naftali Bennett is now considered by many Israelis as the principal alternative to Netanyahu. Bennett is ranked second, after Netanyahu, as the person most suited to serve as prime minister. In fact, Bennett passed all the leaders of the center-left camp, including opposition chair and Yesh Atid-Telem leader Yair Lapid, and Alternative Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who also serves as Blue and White party chairman. Bennett also does better than former Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, who is warming up on the sidelines while deciding whether to enter the fray in the next election.
Given this ranking, the Yamina chairman is preparing to announce his candidacy for prime minister in the next election, which will likely be sooner than anticipated.
Any focus on Bennett’s remarkable achievement is easy to understand. He flipped the tables within a matter of months, transforming himself from the head of a marginal, essentially irrelevant right-wing party who ended up getting tossed into the opposition into an apparent big winner. In that short time, he tripled his potential strength in the Knesset from six seats to 15-19 seats.
