Israeli Press
Maariv poll says a Smotrich-Zehut merger would double Religious Zionism's seats
Graphic: Times of Palestine
Original Reporting
Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism polls at four to five seats on its own, hovering at the threshold that would erase it from the next Knesset. Merged with the Zehut party, it reaches ten.
That is the finding of a survey the Magar Mochot institute conducted for Maariv, which published it on Saturday as an exclusive. The institute questioned 501 Israeli adults between 23 and 27 July, with a margin of error of 4.4 points at 95 percent confidence.
Maariv reported that Zehut has approached Religious Zionism about a merger more than once and been rebuffed, and that Zehut's leadership believes it can clear the 3.25 percent threshold alone — a confidence the same poll does not support.
Zehut draws its support from the same pool: 13 percent of its voters come from Otzma Yehudit, 3 percent from Yesh Atid and 2 percent from Likud. A coalition bloc at 55 seats could reach 61, the paper calculated, if the small parties on the right consolidate rather than split the vote among themselves.
The stake for Palestinians sits behind the seat count. Smotrich is Israel's finance minister and the most explicit author of its plans for sovereignty over the occupied West Bank, and he holds the civil-administration powers that decide land registration, demolition and settlement expansion. Whether his list survives the threshold or is rescued by a merger decides whether that programme keeps a parliamentary vehicle after 27 October.
