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Israel’s Bennett in dilemma over his growing popularity

Current polls give the Yamina party and its leader Naftali Bennett excellent results, just three seats short of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.
Israeli Economy Minister and head of the far-right Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett gestures as he gives a speech during a debate on economy on March 11, 2015 in the costal Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Six days before Israel votes in a snap general election, the centre-left Zionist Union opened a lead of several points over the ruling rightwing Likud party, a poll showed. Bennett, 42, is a champion of the settler movement and a key challenger of Netanyahu to head Israel's rightwing.    AFP PHOTO / GIL COHEN-

Israel’s biggest political parking lot is named “Naftali Bennett.” Polls conducted in recent weeks consistently give his Yamina party 20 Knesset seats and more. In the March elections, he barely garnered six seats (of 120), which dropped to five after Rabbi Rafi Peretz split off from the party. Bennett’s current 20-plus seats in the polls consist of many disenchanted voters from other parties. Although a right-wing ideologue, Bennett, so it seems, has siphoned off voters from the centrist Blue and White party (worth an estimated 6-7 seats), from the ruling Likud (worth at least 10) and from a variety of parties across the political spectrum.

The draw of Bennett’s “parking lot” for these disparate voters lies in the coronavirus crisis. He comes across as just what the country needs to lead it to safety with his proven entrepreneurship, creativity and abilities — as just about everything that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not.

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