Haaretz Headline: Why Netanyahu Can’t Count on Bin Salman. Why Israeli Elections Are Important for Gulf Countries? There are two important questions affecting Israeli polls. One is the spread of the corona and its confrontation, and the other is Iran and its nuclear program, both of which have a negative score for Netanyahu.
Israel’s general election, to be held next Tuesday, April 9, is full of even more sound and fury than usual, but it isn’t at all clear what it will signify. It is portrayed as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the Likud Party, who is completing his tenth consecutive year as prime minister (plus another stint in the 1990s). The main opposition is an ad hoc party called Kahol Lavan (Blue and White), led by no fewer than three former military chiefs of staff, a position often considered second only to the prime minister in importance and visibility. Its leader (and thus prime ministerial candidate) is Benny Gantz, a political newcomer, who managed to craft a party composed of known and unknown personalities with widely different points of view on almost all political issues. In general, though, they are more dovish than the Likud, but are almost solely held together by a dislike, in some cases bordering on obsessive hatred, of Netanyahu. Blue and White and Likud are see-sawing back and forth in the polls, which mostly show about 30 seats for each (out of 120 total). Currently, Likud is slightly ahead.
