Bibi in big trouble: New poll shows Israeli PM in danger of losing bid for fourth term

Center-left Zionist Union alliance pulls ahead of Netanyahu's Likud

Benjamin Netanyahu (Credit: Reuters/Nir Elias)

Corroborating other surveys showing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahufailed to score a big polling bounce following his controversial March 3 congressional address on Iran, a new poll released Tuesday finds the prime minister in grave danger of losing his bid for a fourth term ahead of national elections in one week.

The poll, from the Knesset Channel, puts the center-left Zionist Union ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud party, with the Zionist Union on track to win 24 seats in the 120-seat parliament to Likud’s 21. The centrist Yesh Atid party is projected to win 14 seats.

Haaretz notes that if the Zionist Union joins forces with Yesh Atid and smaller left-leaning and Arab parties, it could form a government with 56 seats. Combining with smaller right-rightist and ultra-Orthodox parties, Netanyahu is on track to assemble 55 seats at most.

The Zionist Union is a coalition of Isaac Herzog’s Labor and Tzipi Livini’s Hatnuah parties. If the coalition manages to form a government, the two plan to rotate the prime ministership, with Herzog serving as premier for the first two years of the government’s term and Livni serving for the latter half. Both Herzog and Livni harshly criticized Netanyahu’s congressional address denouncing a potential Iranian nuclear deal, arguing that the speech further isolated Israel on the international stage.

Luke Brinker is Salon's deputy politics editor. Follow him on Twitter at @LukeBrinker.