Poll Shows Bennett Eisenkot Liberman Party Would Win 47 Seats

A political party led by Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman would win 47 seats in the Knesset, three fewer than the parties would receive if they ran separately, according to a Maariv poll published Friday. The combined list would still hold a wide lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, which the poll projected at 25 seats.

Under the three-party alliance scenario the opposition bloc would reach 61 seats compared with 49 for Netanyahu’s coalition and 10 for the Arab parties. The main beneficiary of such a merger would be the Democrats, which would rise from 10 to 14 seats and preserve the opposition bloc’s narrow majority.

, headed by Avigdor Liberman, would receive 25 seats, one more than the parties would gain separately. In that case Bennett’s Together party would fall by two seats to 24 while the Democrats would rise by one seat to 11. The bloc map would remain unchanged with 60 seats for the opposition, 50 for the coalition and 10 for the Arab parties.

If Eisenkot were placed at the head of the Yisrael Beytenu-Yashar! alliance the list would rise to 27 seats, three more than the parties would receive separately. It would become the largest party ahead of Likud, which would fall by one seat to 24.

The poll also tested a full merger of four opposition parties including the Democrats but excluding the Arab parties. Such a list would win 60 seats, one short of a Knesset majority. In that scenario Likud would rise by one seat to 27, Otzma Yehudit would fall by one seat to eight and the Netanyahu coalition bloc would stand at 50 seats.

Without any mergers and amid uncertainty over a possible U.S.-Iran agreement and continued fighting in Lebanon the political blocs remain unchanged from the previous poll. The Zionist opposition parties would receive 60 seats, Netanyahu’s coalition 50 and the Arab parties 10.