A new poll shows the bloc of Zionist parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu winning a governing majority on its own for the first time, a major shift in the political landscape ahead of elections that must be held by late October.

The survey, published Thursday by Zman Yisrael, a sister site of The Times of Israel, gives the anti-Netanyahu Zionist bloc 62 seats in the 120-member Knesset, one more than the 61 needed to form a government. The pro-Netanyahu bloc wins 50 seats, with the two mainly Arab parties, Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al, taking the remaining 8.

Previous surveys consistently showed the opposition falling short of 60 seats without the backing of Arab parties. That gap had been the central math problem for opposition leaders, who have pledged to form a “Zionist government” without relying on Arab parties for a coalition majority.

Bennett has emphasized his intention to form a “Zionist government” that does not rely on Arab party support, a position that had left his bloc’s path to power dependent on peeling off coalition parties or pushing rivals below the electoral threshold.

The poll gives the individual parties the following seat totals: Likud, 23; Together (led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett), 21; Yashar (led by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot), 19; Yisrael Beytenu, 10; Shas, 9; The Democrats, 8; United Torah Judaism, 8; Otzma Yehudit, 6; Ra’am, 4; Hadash-Ta’al, 4; Religious Zionism, 4; and Blue and White (led by Benny Gantz), 4. The Arab party Balad and the Reservists party fell below the 3.25 percent electoral threshold.

Notably, the anti-Netanyahu bloc’s gain comes even as Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, a current coalition partner, also crosses the threshold with four seats. The party had been hovering dangerously close to the cutoff in recent surveys.

The survey also finds Eisenkot’s Yashar continuing to close in on Bennett’s Together as the largest opposition party, a trend that has been a source of tension in the anti-Netanyahu camp. Bennett and Lapid have publicly urged Eisenkot to join their alliance, with Lapid reportedly offering to drop to third place on their joint list to accommodate him. Eisenkot has declined the offer, saying he did not want to serve as second-in-command, and has instead called on opposition parties to focus on maximizing their combined vote total.

The poll also tested a scenario in which the Arab parties unite under a Joint List. In that case, the combined Arab list would win 13 seats, but the anti-Netanyahu Zionist bloc would fall to 59, below the majority threshold, while the pro-Netanyahu bloc would drop to 48.

Bennett and Lapid announced the formation of their joint party, Together, on April 26, reuniting the pair who briefly governed together in 2021-2022 in a diverse coalition that included the Arab party Ra’am. Attitudes toward such collaboration with Arab parties have soured following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.

Israel must hold elections by October 27 under the current Knesset’s term, though some political analysts expect the date to come slightly earlier.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)