Polls punish Netanyahu despite delaying judicial reform plan

The announcement of the suspension of the final vote on judicial reform served to temporarily reduce tensions on the streets of Israel, although protesters have called for another mass march for this Saturday in Tel Aviv. Benjamin Netanyahu abandoned the project at the last minute, which some interpreted as a sign of weakness from a leader exhausted by protests and who, according to polls by two television stations, he would lose his position as prime minister if elections were held now.

After five elections in less than four years, the last of which were in October, the pre-election noise does not stop in the Israeli media, and in these moments of uncertainty they used the opportunity for new polls. Polls by Channel 12 and Kan News show a sharp decline for Likud, from 32 to 25 seats, which would mean that the ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalist Zionist coalition would not be able to reach the 61 seats needed to form a government. Former army chief Benny Gantz would greatly benefit from the existing chaos, as National Unity would double its presence (from 12 to 23).

In his brief address to the nation on Monday night, the Prime Minister did not project his usual image of power. «This would never happen to old Bibi [así se le conoce popularmente] because I would never let it get to this point where it got out of hand (…) He is someone who knows how to read the audience and public opinion and how to manipulate it. We’re seeing a stunning failure in things I used to be good at,” Anshel Pfeffer, Netanyahu’s biographer, told the daily. Haaretz.

The Prime Minister reacted after mass protests, in which for the first time tens of thousands of supporters and detractors of the Government took to the streets, and after an unprecedented 12-hour general strike that even paralyzed Ben Gurion International Airport. The current Netanyahu faces an opposition led by politicians who grew up under his rule and know him very well, which is why they don’t take him at his word. Yair Lapid, Avigdor Lieberman or Gantz They have been part of various Executive bodies in the recent past and, although they accepted Biba’s call for dialogue to agree on judicial reform, they know who they have before them.

Biba’s “coup”

From the Resistance Umbrella Movement, which gathers mobilization against the reform, they reminded the opponents that they are “participating in a play directed by Netanyahu by participating in the negotiations.” This group talks about Bibi’s “coup d’état”, and in a statement published after learning about the one-month suspension of the reform, it pointed out that this “judicial coup will be approved at the next session of the Knesset”. “Protesters are not stupid and we will not give up,” they added.

This mistrust is palpable in Parliament. A day after the announcement of the suspension, the Government put on the table a key proposal of a new plan related to the election of judges. According to the Ministry of Justice, it is a “formal procedure”, but the opposition sees an attempt to force them to negotiate “with a gun pointed at their foreheads”, according to Labor’s Naama Lazimi.