...and even then the right wins.

In the previous elections Netanyahu did everything he could to drive away Likud voters. He is doing the same now. Instead of advertising Likud's great ministers and the extreme Left's undoubted failures, he attacks Bennet. His stupidity causes Zionists to move to Bennet, and helps people forget how the Left is a combination of inexperience, hypocrisy and failure that brought Grads on Rishon. The only question: if Netanyahu hates the Likud so much, why does he insist on leading it?

Bibi - Bennet 44-15 (Bibi lost one seat) Labor --Barak 14:0 Lapid - Mofaz 7:2 Livni--Meretz 6:3 Eldad/Ben Ari 2 Arabs (Left) 11 Other parties 0

but I remember a couple of weeks ago hearing that livni, yachmivich, and lapid were pondering joining forces. now I'm aware that with those many egos it would have been impossible. but if they did and yachmivich was estimated to win 18, livni to win 11, and LaHood lapid 11, if they had joined, does that mean they could have beaten Netanyahu? now if that does mean that, if they care about the country as much as they do, why wouldnt they join? but please, if anyone could answer the first question id really appreciate it. just looking for a better understanding about the Israeli election system. thank you, God bless the state of Israel, land of the Jewish people. Michelle

Dumb doesnt begin to describe the situation there. Israel will be lost not through war, but because the Jews therein are such incredible fools. All of your leaders, teachers, and Rabbis are a gang of selfish pisshead schnorrers and thieves. You are the fools for allowing them to run your lives and your country into the ground. You have the leadershio you deserve. They reflect you.

only those who served in the I.D.F. were allowed to vote? And remember we have our unelected president peres dissing bibi and b.s. about how good our peace partner,abb-ass is. I believe peres loves abb-ass more than he likes bibi. And supports a pali state over our state of Israel.

Hatnuah would drop 3 sears from 11 to 8.

can start looking for property outside of Israel. The dumb Jews will do a lemming right in front of our eyes!

The accusations against the centre-left here are as ridiculous as their writers are unaware of history. Some simply historical facts: - The centre-left led Israel through the 1948-49 wars for independence and the centre-left established the state of Israel. - The centre-left les Israel in 1967 and it was under the centre-left government that Israel gained all of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Golan. - The centre-left further led Israel in 1973 and succesfully defended the country in the Yom Kippur-war. Every successful Israeli war and every territory Israel has gained has been under a centre-left government.

If you elect anyone that thinks you can reason with terrorists and that pleasing europe and america is a solution to your safety, you will find yourself with no state within a decade. Stop the fantasies that you can please the terrorists, and understand that anything you have now is because you beat and destroyed them and not from conversation. The weakness Israel has shows in the past 12 months, is the same weakness jews always showed before they got destroyed. The test should be simple, any decision you make ask yourself, if this was a day after WWII, how would you deal with it, obviously by no nonsense force and you wouldnt care about germany would say, DO THE SAME NOW. EVERY sane human thats looking at the situation, that studied and respects history, knows, that if the current status quo continues, there will be no israel soon. Jews have had and lost their land many times, and everytime they got it back they thought, this time its forever, then they turned weak, and they lost it. I do not know who is running, If anyone who is running is more serious about using force then bibi, elect them, you cannot have a leadership that cares what outsiders think, ONLY worry about what is best for you to survive, non jews do not care about you, and islam infested countries def. do not care about you, and someone that has the word hussain in their name def doesnt like jews. Respect your history please! Stop thinking you can convert a anti Semite.

Peres doesn't chose a PM based on who has most seats its based on who he thinks has the best chance of forming a coalition. If these polls are true and knowing the fact Peres who is in charge of appointing the next PM has been supporting Labor then as leader of the largest leftist party he will appoint Shelly to be the next PM. Even if they didn't agree to form this leftist block Livni wants before the election its after that matters and I think that Labor, Likud, Lapid, Mofaz would quickly unite easily giving them 46 seats without any fighting for who gets which ministries. A coalition between Bibi, Bennet, Shas, UTJ and Otzma L Yisrael would get 63 seats and as its mostly made up of far right and religious parties It would involve alot of back room deals on who gets which ministries and probably be unstable and difficult to even form. All the left need to form a stable leftist government is invite Bibi in as a junior partner and if Peres appointed her PM the left would join giving a very stable leftist coalition of 78. The only way to guarantee he will win is if he and Bennet agree not to join any coalition with the left Meaning the leftist block can only get 46 to the rightist block of 48 before the back room deals begin. If Livni & Lapid who need to be in government to survive Bibi could manage with the much smaller UTJ rather than Shas to form a coalition of 64 No preselection deal between Bibi & Bennet then Peres will decide Shelly can form a stable leftist coalition and go with her.

You don't get it its not about who has the most seats going into the election its about who has the best chance of forming a coalition when the wheeling & dealing begins and thats actually the left right now. Shelly, Lapid, Livni, Mofaz and Meretz get 48 seats easily and relatively stable. All they need to do then is invite Bibi and they have 80. Bibi & Bennet ( the most reasonable rightists ) will only have 46 then they need all the religious parties and even then only 65 if he includes the far right Otzama Le Yisrael. So the left still have the largest and most stable coalition if they have Likud or even if Bibi refuses to join they can still get majority of 63 with just Bennet. There is now only 1 way to stop Peres appointing Shelly as PM and thats for Bibi & Bennet to both commit in advance not to join any government led by Shelly or Livni. If they do that there is no way the left can get a majority so Peres will have no choice but to appoint Bibi.

In the US turnout proved to be the deciding element. Israeli polls underestimate the young and Arab vote and cell phone only users. In addition other polls show that undecided voters are disproportionately secular and Ashkenazi - good sign for the left. This one could be a squeaker.

Wait Yesterday jpost showed different results of another poll. The only poll that has any validity is the Jan 22 vote.

Is available as usual to the highest bidder.

For my own sanity - can somebody explain to me, why in Israel a party that wants to keep the country as a whole, without this morbid desire to give away Jewish National Home to enemy, - does and plans nothing to make the life of people better (squeeze the bloody oligarchs!.. build cheap housing!.. make food cheaper!..) But NO. They aren't interested. Then there are the lefties, who proclaim to be interested in making people's life better - but couple it with the "necessity" to give away our country to bandits and terrorists. WHY? Why should we be left with such a horrible choice? Where is a party that would say: let's keep our country to ourselves AND make our people's life better! Where are they? Waiting for Mashiyach?

Many people are unaware of the law regarding what happens if you do not vote in Israel. If you got the little card in the mail and decide not to vote, for whatever reason, your vote is EQUALLY DIVIDED AMONG ALL THE PARTIES !! This means if there are 14 parties in total and 14 people decide not to vote, each party automatically picks up one vote. So, think twice about staying at home on Election day. Do you really want to support anti-Zionist parties like Hadash and Balad?

You talk like an idiot.

You either love everyone or no one. That's why the left wants to share with Palestinians as well as make life better for Israelis, and why the right wants to make life miserable for Palestinians as well as for Israelis.

BUT that was then! Time has passed and its a new generation growing up in Israel, a generation that is fed up with wars and so are many of those that went through the wars you mention. Its a different enemy out their, that has a backing from the ignorant of Europe, and the Islamic states. Its a computerized war, its a war where the enemy are not so dumb, wont see them throwing off their boots and running away. So Israel needs a leader who's main concern is Israel eg: Begin, and not world opinion or their own pockets.

My point was, this is a leftist poll and has widely divergent results from the other polls available. But let's play the guessing game anyway; Bibi gets 35 - I think that's fair, though it will probably increase as is traditional. Bennett gets 13 - Again, it could be higher but more will go to Bibi in the end. Shas get 11 - No change, a solid and fairly reliable voter base. UTJ get 6 - same as above. There's 65, 4 above the required 61 to form a government and that's not even counting Otzma, Am Shallem, R'Yitzaks party etc. Also, that is the very lowest one could expect. A Maariv poll released today shows those same parties above accumulating 71 seats. The left is in disarray because, shock and horror, most of them can't lower themselves to indulge that old fossil Livni's ambitions for power. She'll end up with 8, Lapid with 10 and Shelly Belly with 18. That all doesn't matter though, Peres will be compelled to offer PM to Bibi and Bibi will be compelled to form a right wing government. The left is old hat, dying on it's feet and soon to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Shabbat Shalom

putting arabs seats with sionist parties is a shame , the real gap between right and center left is more wide

1) It was the socialist left led Israel though the war of independence and that had less to do with Ben Gurion and his government more to do with the men knowing this was life or death. 2) It was a socialist left that brought Israel through 1967 and again that was because war with Egypt was imminent was going to be about who fired the first shot. The military top brass suggested that preempting would be the best strategy and all Eshkol did was give the ok. 3) The socialist left IDIOT Golda nearly led Israel to defeat. The generals were saying they believed war was a matter of when not if but she was determined that Israel come out of any war looking like victim rather than aggressor so she refused permission to prempt. Even after King Hussain secretly flew to Israel and told her Nasser & Assad had asked him to join in a coalition she refused to see reason and the result was more soldier died than would have done if we prepped. 4) Lebanon 2006 the centre left government tried to micromanage the entire war which ended up a humiliating defeat for Israel and then Livni accepted the disastrous Resolution 1701. 5) Cast Lead centre left Olmert sent the troops into Gaza and when the soldiers were making gains just needed another couple of weeks to achieve the objectives because Livni needed to get in some election campaign time because she was behind in the polls so he unilaterally pulled out no conditions from Hamas or anything said terms would be discussed later. The left sure does have a good record when it comes to military operations. There is also this time round the fact that Shelly's economic plans are crazy, she is all spend no real understanding on where money comes from. She thinks its all about playing Robin Hood, out of all those 3 centre left parties Livni is the only one who has any ministerial experience.

The Centrist parties will unite into the largest political block and rule Israel for a long time. Time has arrived to cooperate with the U.S. and make peace in the region. Secular expatriates who left in huge numbers under Bibi and his religious collaborators will return home to help.

#11. You reasoning is fanciful to say the least. The largest party has first crack at forming a government. Even the leftist polls agree that Likud-Beiteinu is far ahead. Nor should they have any trouble forming a stable government.

somebody tougher than Netanyahu would be a disaster. abbas has been waiting patiently for a long time for an Israeli leader with enough courage and compassion to sit down with him and say "ok brother, cant we all just get along?". the answer isn't fight terror with an iron fist, it's fight terror through dialogue sweet gestures and tough choices concessions. the only viable leader I see strong enough to lead us to the point where we all sing and hold hands for peace is tzipi livni. she is a true Israeli leader who knows abbas is just dying to have a peace partner. now yes it would be lovely id Israelis and Palestinians could make a circle and sing songs together, but as much as we all wish we could dance with them the truth is that we haven't had a leader yet with enough courage to say, " enough is enough!". instead of firing missiles at Palestinians.. Jeff wouldn't it be AMAZING to sit down next to khaled mashaal and say " how are you? how are you feeling? why do we do what we do?" and Jeff you know what will happen? we will find out that we all love the same sports, the same songs, and we truly care hearing about each others feelings. Jeff doesn't this sound beautiful? then you should vote livni! I'm not sure if I changed your mind, I make a very good argument though, but I'm willing to bet, if I was prime minister, id have peace in a day. peace thru love, not hate.

Let's take your optimistic result: Right wing 9 Center Zionists 48 (35+13) Haredim 17 (11+6) Extreme Left 36 (8+10+18) Arab 10 All the Extreme Left has to do is offer the Haredim cash and draft exemptions to get a coalition with 53 (36+17) and 10 Arabs outside guarantee no Zionist government. You don't believe the Left will offer draft exemption and cash, or that the Haredim will accept them? That is exactly what Peres tried to do with the "stinking deal" (Shamir had to pay Shas a lot to prevent it) and is exactly how Rabin formed the disastrous Oslo government. Zionist Forever is correct: despite the Leftists consistent 20-year record of suicidal failures, and the despite the fact that the Zionists have been 100% correct, and despite the fact that the Left is a collection of inexperience, corruption and hypocrisy, the Left may manage to seize power.

Sorry but this is not a TV show, this is real life! How would it of played out if someone sat down with hitler in 1936? Well countries did, he made promises and promises and at the end we know what happened. In your dreams you think talk can work with terror, it never has and never will. Gowing down your path means jews making the same mistake they made many times before and getting destroyed. ONLY thru an iron fist can you maybe survive there, remember, your survival there till now wasnt thru talk, it was tried, it didnt work. You need to understand history, and when you will you will understand and respect my posts.

#10. You are 100% correct. Virtually all of Israel's suffering stems directly from leftist appeasement and retreat. This includes ALL our recent Lebanon and Gaza wars. ALL the rockets from Lebanon and Gaza we suffer... The lunatic left wants to trim Israel's waist to a suicidal 9 miles (15 minute tank ride) to induce Holocaust Denier and Munich Massacre planner Abbas to sign a worthless piece of paper. These are the kind of dolts we are dealing with on the left.